HDV and rendering in FCP
 

Here's the issue. I am editing 720 30p HDV on my MacBook Pro and using the RT Color Correction successfully and happily. The final product will be DV and for web download. There's no intention for it in HD in the forseeable future. When it comes time to actually render the program for output, should I:

1) Render in the HDV timeline with the idea that any artifacts will disappear with the downconvert to DV and H.264?

2) Drag the finished HDV sequence into a DVCProHD sequence, render that and then downconvert? The idea is that there will be a high quality HD file for future use and the render should be cleaner.

3) Aside from re-capturing in a better codec which is not possible at the time, are there any ideas about a better finishing process?

Thanks

I would finish the colour correction in your HDV sequence, archive it as a quicktime movie (do not recompress) and then create a new sequence in your desired output format codec (DV NTSC Anamorphic for example.)
Then simply drag and drop the QT of the HDV sequence into the SD sequence and render.

I suppose you could also just use Compressor to do the downconvert for you into DV or H.264.

Nate Weaver has experimented with adding some sharpness (Unsharp Mask I think) to the downconverted nested sequence for NTSC and H.264 output. Maybe he can chime in with some suggested settings?

I did as you suggested and it looks fine. Thanks.

Dragging the HDV sequence into a DV timeline seems to create the same quality.

I'm a little curious about the process FCP is using regarding real time effects. If I have a sequence with RT effects and I bring it into a sequence using a different codec, how are the effects rendered? Are they first rendered in the original sequence's codec and then re-rendered in the new codec? Sort of like how Compressor renders RT effects but doesn't save the render files.

I would like to know this as well!

the way I would like to think it works is if you edit in an HDV sequence and apply effects, transitions etc, then nest the HDV sequence into, say a DV Anarmorphic sequence and render, FCP would take each frame from the original HDV media file, go to uncompressed, apply effects, recompress as DV. 1 recompression of everything.