Title says it all - what kind of intermediate codec would you choose for 7D footage in PPro CS3?
Footage is flat, shot with 0,-4,0,0 in the 7D and will be graded with Magic Bullet in PPro.

Maybe you have this covered:
Keep it native if all you're doing is editing. As far as color grading is concerned, you can take one pass at it without wavering too much away from your source quality.

If you're doing a lot of effects and re-rendering/precomping, etc, then either AVI (in parts) or an image sequence (TIFF, TGA, JPEG full quality, etc) should also preserve maximum data in these phases.

Do you have a specific need for an intermediate codec?

I was thinking something like ProRes on the Mac. Some codec that is intended to be an intermediate format.

What do you mean by avi? Uncompressed? Avi is a file container, it can contain anything from uncompressed to divx...

Cineform is considered the best. You could also try Avid DNxHD or the Matrox vfw codec, which are free.
If you have enough disk space and speed you could also go for lossless codecs like Lagarith or ut-video.

I was thinking something like ProRes on the Mac. Some codec that is intended to be an intermediate format.


Prores and cineform have many flavors as well. Like I mentioned, how many steps are involved in your post-production workflow + your system resources + time factor will decide the use of codec. AVI uncompressed is what I was referring to, but the file sizes will be insane, but so will uncompressed image sequences.