[David Di francesco]

Your easy setup should be HD, 25fps, XDCam EX 1080p25 VBR.

Use the log and transfert tool to transcode your footage to Pro Res 422 (I don’t think FCP supports the XDCam EX footage natively, but I’m not 100% on that, it may just be a re-wrap to .MOV files like with P2 footage, which would be much faster).

Cut your edit in HD and render out a downconverted SD Pal version when you are all done for final delivery. I personnaly find the software downconverts in FCP to be quite soft, so if you could use a software like After Effects or something to do the downconvert, or better yet playout of say an AJA Kona 3 card directly onto an SD tape, even better.

David D.