Exporting SD timeline containing multiple formats

FCP 6.0 with Dual 1.8

We are currently finishing up a documentary that contains all different kinds of video formats. Most of the footage is DV NTSC but many of the interviews and stock footage was shot in DVCpro 50 720 24pn (HVX200). Knowing that most of our footage was DV NTSC we decided a long time ago to cut the project in a DV NTSC timeline because we dont have the capability to up convert our DV footage to HD but the HD footage seems to downsize and look good in a DV timeline. Now that we have our finished edits we're exporting our timelines with QuickTime Movie with all Current Settings and the QTs look pixelated and doesnt come close in quality to our timeline.
What are we doing wrong??? If were exporting with Current Settings shouldn't it look identical to the timeline?? Please help...

Where are you looking at the exported file? In the QuickTime player? Is playback set to high quality in movie properties?

Thanks for responding!
No, we import the QT back into FCP and put it in a DV NTSC timeline (DV NTSC qt to DV NTSC timeline). Should we expect a decline in quality when making an equivalent QT from the TL? I notice the degraded quality mostly in the 720p 24 footage in the qt but if you play the original Timeline it looks great.

-Is there a viewer setting Im missing??
-Is it not possible to keep the quality of the image and motion when putting DVCpro 720 24p footage in a DV NTSC project? it looks and plays great in the Timeline?
-Whats the best way to output a final master file and keep the integrity of the project with multiple formats in the project???

Are you looking at the DV output on a video monitor? Yes, there will be a degradation of the 720p material. You're making it 480i. Mixing 24p into a 29.97 timeline is a really bad idea, but there's nothing you can do about it know I'm guessing. Not sure, if you knew you were going to DV, why the material was shot at that frame rate in the first place. Also not sure why you're exporting your DV timeline and putting it back into FCP in another DV timeline. Make a master export in ProRes to maintain as high a quality as possible.

How do I go about exporting in ProRes and which one is best????

Another question:
If we were to start over with all the footage that we currently have what would have been the best format to build the project in??? (Ultimately the project is a straight to DVD release)

70% of the footage is DV NTSC 4:3
25% of the footage is DVC Pro 720 24p 16:9
5% is misc. HD and SD formats

Im sure this is wrong but for continuity we need it to apear wide screen 16:9 so we built the project in a DVNTSC 4:3 timeline and masked a letter box. Its a cheater way but 70% of the footage is 4:3. What should we have done??

Export>QuickTime Movie select ProRes. Probably ProRes for the appropriate SD format. If you have a lot of motion graphics you might try ProResHQ, but I don't think it's worth it for most material.

If the bulk of the material is 4:3 DV that's what I would edit. If there was time I'd run all the 24p material through Compressor and convert it to 29.97 using best settings for most of it, depending on the content. It'll take a long time. Put all the material into the DV sequence. Set it to render in ProRes. Then put the edit 4:3 sequence into a 16:9 DV sequence to make it widescreen. Set that to render ProRes. Output a ProRes master. Take that to Compressor for your MPEG-2 encode.

Unfortunately there's no single best answer to these types of questions. What you should have done depends on what your ultimately trying to accomplish and what's most important to you.

Some people think a workflow that provides ease of use is the most important, others prefer quality, and another consideration is disk space, speed and and capacity.

Although these things are not mutually exclusive of one another its pretty easy to see that if you have a slow computer with limited drive capacity you'll have to compress your content more to something like DV thereby sacrificing quality.

If it were my project I would have converted everything to uncompressed SD going straight to mpeg never touching DV.

One thing you can check in the workflow that you are currently using is if you have converted everything to DV and are working in a DV timeline make sure that whenever you export anything use the Export Quicktime Movie with current settings selected and make sure Recompress All Frames is UNCHECKED and Make Movie Self-Contained is checked. If Recompress All Frames is checked you are obviously re-encoding DV to DV which will lose quality.

I'd also recommend that since you are not working in a ProRes timeline that you export Uncompressed 8-bit NTSC 48KHz (if in the US) and then encode for DVD from there. It will give you the highest possible quality.

Good luck

Okay... all that makes since and answers a bunch of questions... THANKS!

Another question:
We have two FCP 6.0.2 systems working on the same project. Mine is an older Dual 1.8 G5 and the other is a newer Quad Core Mac Pro. On both systems the timelines play real clean even with all the different formats mixed together. But when we export a QT with equivalent settings and bring the QT back into FCP and drop it into the same timeline as the original edit the QT looks super degraded. Yet that same QT file on the older computer if played in FCP looks crisp. What gives???? Are there some viewer/play back settings that we dont know about?

Is there a way to attach Images to this forum? If so I could show you what I'm talking about with screen grabs...

What about copy and pasting our edits out of the DV NTSC timeline and Pasting them into a ProRes NTSC timeline? would that keep the best image quality? If so thats an easy fix... Also whats better: ProRes or Uncompressed 8 bit NTSC???

In the past we always worked in, and delivered the final/master file in the format we shot in. In this case we have too many formats but mostly DV NTSC so we need to keep it 4:3 NTSC. I dont understand the purpose of the ProRes or Uncompressed 8 bit???

The purpose of either uncompressed or ProRes in this context is as an intermediate format, one that you can use to convert all of your assets to the same format. Once in that format you shouldn't need to continually need to re-encode the footage.

Probably the reason there's a noticeable difference in playback is because in FCP 6x you can mix formats, but generally any clips that do not match the sequence settings will have a green render bar above it and the playback will look bad until you render it. If you have these render bars choose render both "command R" to render then the quality should look better.

Chances are your sequence settings might be different on each machine. Also FCP 6x will set the sequence to match the first clip placed in the timeline, it will ask you before changing the setting. This is a good thing but can screw you up a bit.

If you have the bandwidth, uncompressed is the best quality, its uncompressed. If you have limited bandwidth and capacity ProRes is a great intermediate codec and is much better than DV [although I've never used it for SD].

Good luck

Thanks!!
What is the difference between ProRes and ProRes (HQ)? Is there a real difference?

What Im planning to do is copy and paste our original edits from our DV timeline into a ProRes Timeline. Then Render and output to a ProRes QT file. Is this a good idea?

ProRes(HQ) is 220Mb/s and is good if your going to expert to film, for SDDVD its way overkill. ProRes is 140Mb/s, the same as HDCam SR which is great for HD still overkill for SDDVD.

Simply cutting and pasting your clips from one sequence to another does not change the asset. Generally you choose the format when you capture it.

Again if this were my project I would take the existing sequence and export it via media manager and convert all of my clips to uncompressed then copy the timeline to a new uncompressed sequence and re-link the footage to the new uncompressed media.

Of coarse this depends on how far along you are in the editorial process and how large your current project is. This can be a bit complicated and without knowing exactly what you have and what your trying to accomplish I think you should proceed carefully with the advice I've given.

It certainly has the potential of over complicating things.

Good luck