Mac/FCE/FCP - What is the best setting????
 

I have a problem. I'm using Canon's HG10 HD AVCHD video camera. I import my movies into final cut express, edit my movie and render it. After rendering it (regardless of the setting I set it at) as h.264,mpeg-4,appleintermediate codec, ect,etc....it doesn' come out as clear as the way it looks when I play insode fincal cut. The colors aren;t as rich, the footage itself isn;t as clear. What should the settings be? I want this to come out as good as possible when I burn it onto a DVD. Can soenone advise the proper settings in final cut and when I'm ready to export my movie as...?

In your User Preferences/Render Controls are your renders set for "100%" and "best quality?"
In System Settings/Playback Control is Record set to "Full Quality?"
Is your sequence set to the same codec as your aquissition format or a higher quality codec?

The answer to all of the above should be "yes." If not make the appropriate changes.

I'm still near the bottom of the learning curve, but when you render a sequence and output it, the choices for output compression are some of the most critical in the production chain. I've been reading and testing for weeks now and realize that the balance of render quality, file size and bit rate is output device dependent and no single render will satisfy all viewing needs. There are also many other 3rd party compression software packages that provide professional results for DVD, HD computer viewing and quick downloads.

Another area to look at is your preferences in Quicktime. There is a setting that turns on Final Cut color compatibility. This will display color and gamma very close (if not exact) to what you see in FCP.

I also found that if I output to the MPEG-4 codec, the colors and gamma are exact, but the files are larger than if output to the h.264 codec.