Well, first off know that Avid isn't like Premiere. Avid really wants the media you import to be converted to an Avid friendly editing format. Premiere doesn't, as you know...it works with media natively. So if you are going to use Avid Media Composer, you need to do what it wants.
First off...don't import by dragging into a bin...that INSTANTLY converts the footage. If you want to access it natively, you use AMA. LINK TO AMA will bring in the media natively...make a clip that points to the media, untranscoded. Now, if you want, you can try to edit that natively. Avid MC can do that...but it is far from optimal. It might be very sluggish.
The best thing to do would be to then highlight all the clips you brought in via AMA and TRANSCODE to DNxHD.
Shane
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