Blurry and Fuzzy Imports

FCP Sequence is 1280x720p ProRes 25 fps - render settings=best

sequence footage is as crisp as iceberg lettuce in the FCP timeline

there's a cut mid-shot to the same footage in motion (with stuff added)

and it gets noticeably blurry - nowhere near a seamless match

to try and isolate the problem, I created a new motion file (HD Broadcast 720p, 25fps) and brought the orignal clip into motion from the finder - reduced to 95.5% to match scale of footage in FCP - (NO OTHER EFFECTS OR ACTIONS ADDDED) brought motion file into FCP timeline - rendered - still blurry - tried outputting as quicktime from motion - still blurry - tried outputting via compresssor - still blurry -

Now, we can't be saying that FCP is better at scaling than Motion, can we ? But I've done this a hundred times before and this problem is only occurring about 15 percent of the time - and, for the life of me, I can't find any difference between the files the work and the ones that don't.

I've tried every setting I could think of - motion blur in motion set to default of 8 sample 360 degrees - futzed around there - no change - but this isn't about movement - I can't even get a static frame to match focus when I cut from source to motion output

baffled.

screenshot at:

[www.tuzigoot.com]

(Motion on left, superimposed on source in FCP timeline on right)

Oh yeah - PS - running all latest updates of FCS 2 as of 2/2009

That image is not full rez - looks severely compressed. Both sides are soft (left side is a little softer).

Need your exact Project Settings & footage sizes (PAR). I am on FCS2 fully updated as well and I do not have an "HD Broadcast 720p, 25fps" preset (that's a Custom Setting because the "Broadcast HD 720p" preset loads @ 29.97fps).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks, Joey -

Actually not compressed - but window magnified to 200% so I could see what was going on with both. And yes, it was a custom preset.

I solved the mystery and I'll post it here (and at at the other forum I posted on) in case anyone else falls down this weird little rabbit hole.

It's a screen capture project, w/ source footage 1344 x 840. I did the rough edit in a 1344x840 timeline - for timing and sync w/narration. I copied the sequence and converted it to 1280x720 to do the pans, zooms and final framing. From this timeline, I often sent stuff to motion for masks, mattes and graphics - and it worked 85% of the time...

But other stuff was going fuzzy. To fix it, I went back to the 1344x840 timeline - sent to motion from there and rebuilt the shot. Then brought that full rez motion file into 1280x720...

The match cuts between source footage and motion files are now invisible.

Thank you for posting your solution - so it seems it had to do with combining FCP's scaling with sending to Motion.

Yes...thank you for posting your solution. Not enough peeps do that and it helps everyone

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.