[Michael Gissing]

Of course, the other thing you will find out about FCP is the trick of trashing preferences and repairing disk permissions when things behave badly. Searching this forum will describe in great details how to do this.

There are a few excellent free utilities to help with this.

[Michael Gissing]

I would update both quicktime & FCP to the latest versions. That setup should never have issues with DV. I suspect the FCP quicktime combo as your hardware is well over spec.

Most people moved quickly off the earlier and buggy version of vers 6 and there have been some quicktime versions that were for the iPhone and not helpful for FCP

[Michael Gissing]

How did you connect to the deck for picture & audio?

How are you monitoring the playback?

[Michael Gissing]

Before we get dewy eyed about the simplicity of the past and bemoan the growing complexity of the future, lets not forget the myriad film formats – 8mm, super8, 9.5mm, 16mm single/double perf, super 16, 35mm 2perf/4perf, 65mm, 70mm, IMAX, Showscan etc (I know I have forgotten some beauties)

[Michael Gissing]

I have never been happy with letting FCP make a down conversion with any of the methods you describe, compared to a hardware down convert. I also have a Decklink card and their down convert is not good either. Kona is the best at that.

External hardware is a better approach if you are delivering tape. Compressor is the best alternative if making a file.

[Michael Gissing]

[Tom Wolsky] “What is beyond ridiculous is that camera manufacturers produce cameras that do not conform to broadcast specifications”

So what happens if a broadcast legal camera output is graded and the white level is pushed up? And why should the dynamic range of a shot be camera limited? Why not give the grader the option to bring down peak whites that aren’t clipped in camera?

[Michael Gissing]

A couple of observations. Firstly broadcast safe is a dud filter. Levels can be legal with this as last filter until render and then levels do not render legal. I stopped using this filter years ago and prefer RGB limit which is much more accurate post render, although not infallible.

Secondly Baz,how can a smart filter on a clip know about the other layers like supers etc which, depending on composite modes, can send a legal clip over. Putting a limit filter on a nest is the only alternative but really, the only logical way to broadcast limit is on the final SDI output. If this can be a master setting in FCP or an option on an I/O card, this to me is the only logical way to deal with this. A clip based option is never going to be satisfactory.

My preference would be for a hardware limiter as part of the I/O card.

[Michael Gissing]

[Matt Torti] “My question has nothing to do with 16:9 aspect ratio.”

Then why did your first post talk about an export looking squished and it being anamorphic? That means the original is 16:9 squeezed into an anamorphic 4:3 frame.

[Michael Gissing]

Firewire Basic easy setup is likely to be the most compatible

[Michael Gissing]

They all seem to favour H264, some with custom file wrappers. All require conversion for editing. This is such a common discussion, I suggest a search of the forum will reveal others attempts to get these prosumer and DSLR camera to work in FCP.