Best AVCHD converter?

[deltad]

Hey, so I'm planning to make a little investment (max $60) in an AVCHD converter, which one do you recommend?

So far I have seen the iFunia AVCHD converter, VoltaicHD, and Neo HD Video Converter, but any suggestion would be great (I just need the app to be in the Mac App Store)

Btw, I have a MBP 15'' 2.0 GHz Early 2011 model.

One question, does the conversion quality (NOT speed) depends on the quality of the hardware?

Oh, and it would be great to have a converter that takes advantage of the quad core!

[Nethfel]

What is your intent for the conversion? Are you converting for playback convenience or for editing purposes?

[deltad]

What is your intent for the conversion? Are you converting for playback convenience or for editing purposes?

For editing purposes. I will use iMovie. I know that I can import AVCHD into iMovie, the problem is that all of my vids are in an external hard drive and not in my camcorder (I understand that only way of importing AVCHD into iMovie is connecting the camera, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Also, I don't want iMovie to "optimize" my videos (convert to MOV...?) , which is required for some functions such as slow motion, I just want to import it to iMovie and edit them right away. I thought that MP4 would require no optimization, but it did, iMovie created a 600 MB MOV clip from a 100 MB MP4 clip.

[chas_m]

You can try the free MPEG Streamclip to see if it will convert to AIC.