Large HD project, export portions as what file type?

[Ron Hunter]

I understand that if I'm working on a long or complex SD project, I should work on the project in short portions, export each portion as DV-AVI, then create a master project that uses the DV-AVI files.

What if I'm working on a large or complex HD project? What file type should I export each portion as?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

H264 or mpeg4 should do the trick. But if you need to do further editing then my personal preference is to go back to the original source rather than edit the exported files.

[Chuck Engels]

I do all of my HDV work in Premiere Pro and use the Adobe Media Encoder to export projects for Encore.
I use the HDV preset to do that which exports a M2t file which is the same format as I capture in (HDV MPEG 2).
That works very well and the quality is excellent, not sure what the equivalent is in Elements.