The thing now is unlike some years ago, everybody uses Pansonic P2 cameras and the like these days (to my surprise, even exercises in film courses!). Problem is, not everybody has access to editing 720p/HD footage, and hardware requirements aside, most of the problem lies that the trusty Adobe Premiere CS3 doesn’t have it by default.
If you don’t want to upgrade to the still-buggy (and resource-hungrier) CS4 suite, Adobe has given a patch update to add Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, etc support to CS3. Its just looking at the right places, specifically here in this link.
The file size is around fifty megs, so make sure you have a pretty fast connection with you. And when updating, don’t forget to close your current Adobe programs, and disconnect your internet connection, too (especially if you don’t want to be caught in those registration things again).
After installation, to verify if you have the right version, run Adobe Premiere Pro then go to Help>About Premiere and a splash screen will show up with the version number below.
Actually, you’ll know you got the update right when you do click a New Project, more formats will appear (instead of the regular DV and HDV formats)
Formats-a-plenty!