Obviously a newbie question.

I just saw a post on here which talked about converting to DVxHD and/or ffmpeg FFV1 . My raw footage is AVCHD.

I'm assuming the benefits to this are all on the editing side (and can thus be solved by using proxy clips). Am I wrong? Are there benefits I'm not seeing?

I am editing AVCHD 28 Mbit/s (1080p 23.98 fps) footage with no stability issues on Kdenlive 17.12.

Performance with basic editing (Titling, simple cuts, fades to/from black) while rendering to Generic/MP4 preset:

Lenovo M58 Core 2 Duo @ 3 GHz 8 GB RAM
5 X real time.
Using proxies while editing.

HP Z620 E5-2640 @ 2.5 GHz 32 GB RAM
2/3 real time
Not using proxies while editing.

Performance with stack of effects is a whole different story. It does not take a lot of effects to reach 5 X to 10 X real time on my Z620. If I "pimp" my AVCHD footage to DNxHD to preserve quality with a lot of effects, I would end up with a performance degradation.

Hello,
If you use proxies, no worry with your source format (unless sometimes there have been temporary bugs with MLT and/or FFmpeg which I solved through a transcode).
If you edit without proxies, then...
AVCHD uses the MPEG-TS container, which I believe is slow to precisely seek.
Then depending on your camcorder codec configuration, you should check if it uses only I-frames (full image) or small GOP's (few P-frames, no B-frames). If this is the case, you can try only remuxing to MOV or MKV to see if seeking is smoother.
If you have large GOP's and/or B-frames, then transcoding could be a solution for smotther editing, but then why not using proxies?!
Cheers,
Vincent