You can:

1. Purchase Calibrated{Q} XD Decode, a QuickTime component for decoding, among other codecs, XDCAM-EX MOVs on a PC. It's not free, but it's basically pay-and-play; once installed, you can import the files and work with them without another thought.
2. Rewrap the MOVs back into MXF files, which will import natively into Premiere Pro. This is a bit more advanced, and involves some space and time, but is free and has the added benefit of letting Pr working in a 64-bit native process to decode these files.

If you're interested in the latter, grab MediaInfo and run a report on one of the MOVs; copy and paste from Text view here. I'll take it from there...

Hi Jon,

OK, this should do it for you: http://www.mediafire.com/file/o13jgho6m4hik0h/xdcamfix.zip

Download that, extract the files to the same folder as your MOVs, and double-click the "xdcamfix.bat" file. Sit back for a few moments while the clips are rewrapped; you'll wind up with MXF files that have dual mono instead of stereo audio (you can remap to stereo after you import into Pr, if you like). This will process all MOVs in the folder, and create MXFs with the same name. Simply import into Premiere Pro, and go to town. Enjoy the cost savings

(If you get any errors, let me know.)

OK, put the files from the zip and one of your MOVs into its own folder. Hold down Shift and right-click in the Explorer pane for that folder; select "Open command window here." That will launch a DOS box that is open to the folder you just created.

At the command prompt, type "xdcamfix" (without the quotes) and hit Enter. Some stuff will fly by, and you'll probably get an error message in red text. Let me know what that says.

Do you have a very small test file you could upload somewhere? If you have a small file but no upload location, let me know via PM and I'll get you an FTP access.

Der der... I'm a bonehead

OK, right-click on the BAT file and select "Edit"--this will open up the batch file for editing in Notepad. Near the end of the script, you'll see a little text blob that says:

0:2:0:0:2:0

Change it to read:

0:1:1:0:2:0

Save the file, and try the batch again; it should work now.

Cool! Glad that worked. If you're interested, the reason that the original batch didn't work was because I had the audio channel mapping wrong; the script was looking for a second audio track, which wasn't there. The source files have a single stereo track, while the MXF output requires mono audio (which I think I mentioned above), so we have to do some rerouting of the input channels in the script. You'll notice that when these MXFs import, Pr reports them as "2 Mono" vs. "Stereo," which is true; just use remapping in Pr if you prefer them as stereo.

Not really sure about why XD Decode didn't work. It should enable decoding of any of the XDCAM flavors. What version of QuickTime Player are you using? The folks at Calibrated are very fast to respond, so you might email their support. I must confess that I don't actually use the product, beyond having tried it out as a demo; when I need to use this kind of footage, I use my hack workaround

QuickTime 7 (for PCs, anyway) is 32-bit; I think QuickTime X which is only available on Macs is 64-bit, but that's a completely different animal. I know that there is some issue with the XD Decode component and Apple HDV files (actually it's an issue in QT7, and not the Calibrated stuff) where you have to use no later than QuickTime 7.6.9, but I don't believe that affects XDCAM files. With XD Decode installed, can you open up one of the files in QuickTime Player? If so, the plug-in is working (at least outside of Pr). I just tried the latest version here, and it seems to be working externally... and it works in Pr CS5.5, as well (with watermark).

You might consider VLC for playback: VideoLAN - VLC. It will playback XDCAM MOVs without requiring the XD Decode plugin

Colin, I had the same issue and your ffmbc.exe and xdcamfix.bat worked for me! Thank you SO much!  I just spent about 3 hours trying everything I could find with no luck until I found this. Fortunately I didn't have to modify or edit the bat file in any way. I simply extracted to the folder with the MOV files and double clicked on the bat file and waited as the mxf files were created.

YOU'RE THE MAN!!!!

I have a similar problem. A friend sent me the .mov files he recordedin the XDCAM 16x9 1920x1080 . I can't import them into my Win7 Premiere Pro. Codec Missing or unavailable. Lots of people seem to have the same proble id using a PC - particularly when they have been sent the .mov files on a hard drive. The folder

I can play the videos using VLC but not on WindowsMedia or DivX (sound only) or with QuickTime ( won't load - needs new software from Adobe plugins)

If this is a codec problem why can VLC play it?

I have checked out the files with MediaInfo and they are slightly different to the above. Are there ary rules to determing the value of the parameter for the bat file for my mov file. I think this looks like stereo but you will recognise the information you would need. I tried the current bat but that has another audio file map.

General
Complete name                            : P:\H2012 Videos Walter HD\contest.jury.mov
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Commercial name                          : XDCAM EX 35
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt 
File size                                : 85.4 MiB
Duration                                 : 19s 720ms
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 36.3 Mbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-11-15 18:58:16
Tagged date                              : UTC 2012-11-21 12:46:49
Writing library                          : Apple QuickTime
©TSC                                     : 25
©TSZ                                     : 1

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Commercial name                          : XDCAM EX 35
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : Variable
Codec ID                                 : xdve
Duration                                 : 19s 720ms
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 35.0 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 888 pixels
Original width                           : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 062 pixels
Original height                          : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Standard                                 : Component
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.698
Stream size                              : 81.7 MiB (96%)
Title                                    : Apple Video Mediensteuerung / Apple Alias-Datensteuerung
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-11-15 18:58:16
Tagged date                              : UTC 2012-11-15 19:01:34
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings, Endianness              : Little
Format settings, Sign                    : Signed
Codec ID                                 : sowt
Duration                                 : 19s 720ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 3.61 MiB (4%)
Title                                    : Apple Ton Mediensteuerung / Apple Alias-Datensteuerung
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-11-15 18:58:16
Tagged date                              : UTC 2012-11-15 19:01:33

Menu
ID                                       : 3
Duration                                 : 19s 720ms
Title                                    : Zeitmarken-Mediensteuerung / Apple Alias-Datensteuerung
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-11-15 19:01:34
Tagged date                              : UTC 2012-11-15 19:01:34

Thanks - I am using a PC - Win 7. The camerman is away, filming , but I will see what I can do. I tried the  convergent design convertor but the mxf file it produced would not import into PPro either - "importer reported a generic error". It opens properly in VLC.

I got this to work using the demo version and had some  very useful conversations with them. Excellent support.