We have not been pleased with the downconversion of HDV 720p60 to NTSC inside FCPro or through QT. Images that look superb natively, look soft focus when actively converted within the app, and look only marginally better when exported and reimported. Anyone have a strategy that works without introducing serious softness or flickering?

Thanks

Dave B

Dave,

I just gave up on 720p60 to 480i NTSC.

What we do now is convert all 720p60 to 480p30 for standard def DVD's. They still look decent on 480i CRT monitors and look amazing on any LCD/Plasma.

If you mainly work in broadcast then I guess this doesn't help much.

There are still a lot of options within what you are doing. I'm not sure specifically what you tried. I hope you aren't going to DV-NTSC in the timeline?

Export to compressor from your edited FCP timeline in FCP studio 2, avoiding further re-compression to HDV (fcp 5 does not do this as well).
If you are going to DVD, do this directly in compressor. Adding moderate edge sharpening at this stage is not a bad thing, although it will add quite a bit to the render time (test with a small section first of course). Sharpening is best applied at the final resolution. Artifacts can be a problem with the second stage of mpg2 compression, since the 60p footage is much more compressed than lower frame rates. Definitely don't push the DVD compression stage too far with this footage, or blocks and banding will turn up.

If you are going to some other form of delivery, export to compressor, and make digital files in a high quality form. Ideally lossless - SheerVideo-QT comes highly recommended from Paolo. There are some other high quality codecs like pro-res. These could be your deliverables, or they could be put on high quality tape, like digi-beta. Avoid going to the DV codec at any stage. It's the multiple transcoding that can kill quality.