Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
There're two ways.
Outside premiere, rename the folder holding all the .avi files, or just move them somewhere else. Then the next time you load that project, Premiere will ask you to locate each of the missing file. Then you point it to the original .mov file.
Inside Premiere, you can right click on the .avi file and select "Make Offline". Then right click again to select "Link Media". that will do too!
If you are going that route, you can simply transcode your source file to something like DV avi that you can work off any computer or laptop. I have been doing Proxy editing so I can edit rough cuts with my laptop sitting out at a starbucks =)
http://lacolorshop.com/blog/view.asp?id=9
This is exactly what I do. My laptop is two years old and wasn't the kingpin of processing power when I bought it, so I have to edit LQ first.
However, I do all my color correction on the HQ clips after I Link Media. That's the only way I can really get the fullest (possible) range of color on my laptop.
If, for some reason, I need to make more cuts while working on the HQ files, I just do what you did: "Make Offline," "Link Media" with the LQ files, make the cuts, and then reverse it to start color correcting again.
So awesome!