I've been working on a long format project of the last week. I shot everything in XDCAM EX 1080 30p, my FCP timeline was also set to XDCAM EX 1080 30p, but I have the Sequence Settings Render tab set to render as ProRes instead of "Same as Sequence". So here's my questions:

1) When I bring a XDCAM EX file into Adobe After Effects to do some graphics, compositing, then render it out as ProRes HQ and import it back into FCP, the black level (gamma?) is way off. Why is that? Is it a mismatch between FCP and AE or the codecs (XDCAM ED and ProRes HQ)?

2) When I bring my finished ProRes HQ file back into FCP, I have to render it before it will play in the timeline. So today I tried rendering in AE as Quicktime>XDCAM EX 1080 30p (29.97 fps....same as my sequence settings in FCP) and when I dropped this file into my FCP time line, it didn't require rendering. Cool! But.....it wouldn't play worth a darn. I'd get the spinning beach ball and finally FCP would play it but at approximately 2 frames per second. Weird huh?

Anyone have experience with these issues?

Thanks! :)

BTW, I'm using a 3.0 Ghz Quad Core Intel MacPro tower with 9GB of RAM and OS 10.5.6

BTW, I'm using a 3.0 Ghz Quad Core Intel MacPro tower with 9GB of RAM and OS 10.5.6
I have no insight into your problem, but that's the oddest RAM config I have ever seen. Never heard of a Mac with 9 Gigs of RAM! Is that a typo? You should have an even number!

It originally came with 2 x 512 sticks. I added 8GB more.