[Brad Elliott]

The artifacting that you are seeing is usually caused by the following:
1) The data rate
2) Colors/whites are too hot

No matter what the pixel dimensions of your file the data rate generally has the largest control over quality/size of your finished file.

I have had problems with compression that couldn’t be easy explained and thought it was the codec that I was being asked to use. After checking my sequence in a waveform and vectorscope it was determined the whites and reds were too hot. Adding a broadcast safe filter and making some color adjustments solved the problem.

Where will your final deliverable be used?

[Brad Elliott]

If you are scanning keep in mind that FCP7 doesn’t recommend using images over 4000×4000 pixels(DPI doesn’t matter).

You can import files that are larger but like H264 they will cause more problems than they solve.

Presuming you are not shooting 4K the video shouldn’t be over 1920×1080.
In my experience I can scale 1280×720 and higher images/video a great deal before I have similar image loss to when I scale a SD image over 115%.

If the shooter knows you how tight you need an image shot and the quality of the image is decent to begin with you should have very few if any problems.

[Brad Elliott]

Data rate determines size.
The presets can be adjusted.

How small vs. how big and how good or bad something looks is determined by the person using the setting.

One size does not fit all applications all of the time.

[Brad Elliott]

If you are on a Mac I would use Compressor.

Compressor’s native setting for Apple devices is an H264 for apple devices with a m4v extension.

[Brad Elliott]

When you export the movie set the markers pull-down to none.

Nothing should be imbedded in the movie and if you open it in QT you will not have any sort of pull-down option to jump to another point in the QT.

[Brad Elliott]

I have not had success using Nattress for HD to SD conversion as Nattress is looking for a SD clip to drop in the source window.

I would convert the the PAL HD to PAL SD with your described workflow and then use Nattress to make the SD version.

I would only use Compressor to convert your NTSC SD file for DVD as I find Nattress does a better standards conversion than Compressor.

[Brad Elliott]

All of the Canon footage we have ingested through L&T comes in native as upper field in FC.

Camera model & settings can effect this but we have ingested many TBs of 5D & 7D and we have never had the need to changed the field dominance.

Try starting a new project, create a new sequence, and import one of your clips and add it to the sequence. See if seq & clip match. Check playback settings.

This is most likely something simple and/or FC isn’t playing nice when it should.

[Brad Elliott]

More than likely your sequence settings do not match your clips settings.

Unless the default FC preferences have been changed FC should ask you if you would like to change your sequence settings to match the clip settings.

The sequence settings frame grab is set to LT. The other grab makes me wonder if I’m not seeing the entire codec column. Are the clips are PR422 or PR422 LT or PR422?

Start with a empty sequence.
Add a clip
If you are prompted and click yes to change the seq settings you should see that your sequence and clips settings match and you shouldn’t have to render. You could find that the clips are not what you thought.

In my experience the first time I log and transfer after adding a Canon plug-in the default setting in L&T is PR422 4444. I learned the hard way to check this before starting any processes.

[Brad Elliott]

https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/imovie?view=discussions

[Brad Elliott]

I find Compressor to be inconsistent in the HD to SD conversion for DVD.

Others have found success in changing all the frame controls to best.
This will increase your render time but usually always works. If your show is over 45 minutes I would try a 2 pass variable bit rate with a max of 8 and a average of 6.5mbps. I would do some short tests with known problem areas.

Unless you are editing in PR LT I would export the same settings as your sequence via Quicktime(not Quicktime conversion). I always use a reference file for Compression unless you have to export a master anyway as it will save time. Reference files are like a band-aid. Most do not recommend using them more than once.

I have had consistent success with having FC doing the HD to SD conversion and it is usually faster than using Compressor for everything.

I export a ref QT to my project folder.
Create the appropriate SD sequence
Add the exported ref to the sequence and render.
Export the rendered SD sequence and then compress for DVD.