iMovie to AVCHD using Roxio - How to avoid encoding?

[s3e3]

I'm not sure how many iMovie experts we have here but let me give this a shot.
I am working on some video footage which was imported into iMovie with my AVCHD camcorder. After editing it and exporting it to a Quicktime movie using the export feature I want to burn it to a AVCHD DVD disc. To accomplish this I am using Toast 10 however the video always has to be encoded before it's burned.
Is there any way around this using iMovie?

 

[spinnerlys]

iMovie can't edit AVCHD natively, thus the footage gets converted to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) to edit it properly.

If you wan't to make an AVCHD DVD (what is that?) from your final sequence, you have to encode that material to AVCHD again.

You could use other editing software, which edits AVCHD natively, thus no encoding processes maybe. I heard Premiere CS4 is capable of editing AVCHD without prior conversion.

 

[s3e3]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm not too keen on using Premier but I will give it a shot. I liked the idea of using imovie because it is very user friendly and basic enough for my needs..

I am to assume most people don't currently want to transfer their 720p or 1080i video's to AVCHD discs?