I need to transfer a full HD file - frame size 1280x720 progressive scan from PP CS5 to a Final Cut Pro 'friendly compression' file (i.e.no H264 etc) without losing quality.
Can I export from within Premiere to an appropriate AVI or QT file and if so how ? I have only just got Premiere Pro 5 and I can't work out the export settings or procedures.

Don't export, simply use file copy from Explorer/Finder without any conversion.

Sorry Harm but I don't understand, I'm afraid. Could you expand your answer a little please ? I am in PP5 with a 10 sec clip highlighted which I eventually want to FTP to a FCP editor. What do I do now to follow your suggestion ?

Mike,

You have the clip on your PC. You need to have it accessible over FTP from a MAC. Just copy the clip over to your website or upload it to an externally hosted web. You can use something like Filezilla to do that.

If you have edited the clip and export it to some format, you will always have a quality loss because of recompression. In that case you can use almost any MAC friendly format, but you may still have to upload to your website with Filezilla or the like for FTP download.

Thank you for your time and patience, Harm.

Your reply makes perfect sense but unfortunately the clip _is_ ( and has to be) edited I'm afraid. By 'clip' I meant a short sequence (10 secs or so) on the timeline within the Premiere project. And the FCP editor wants the clip to be in a 'FCP friendly' format. I have tried File>Export>Media and used the following settings:

Format: QT, Video Codec: jpeg2000.
Frame Size:1080x720, Field Type: Progressive ( as Camera settings and Project )
Aspect Ratio: I have tried both Square Pixels (Project preset) and HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)
Bit depth: 32

When I export using these settings and play back in QT player the picture quality seems OK but it is unacceptably jerky.

Do you have any suggestions as to why this is so and how to improve it ?

Try File > Export > Final Cut Pro XML. Import the XML file into FCP.
No guarantee how well those clips will play in FCP, especially if they are native DSLR.
Let us know how it goes.

Thanks Kevin but the FCP editor has asked me not to send him XML files - they have proved time-consuming and problematic in the past - apparently.

Mike,

Have you tried either H.264 (the non-QT version) or QT-H.264? Possibly J2000 is causing the problems.

Thanks Harm but I have been warned off using H264 and CS5 does not specify QT-H264 or non QT-H264. I have tried Motion JPEG A as the QT codec and it seems to do the trick - plays OK in QT player anyway. This codec setting has an option as to Number of Fields (1 or 2) and Field Dominance (Even or Odd.)I have selected Number of Fields 1. What do you think ?

It has been suggested elsewhere that I go to File>Export>Media and select the 'Match Sequence Settings'
option and FTP that to the FCP editor who should be able to handle the clip without me having to convert it to a .mov file. Is that more or less what you originally suggested Harm ?

Thanks Kevin but the FCP editor has asked me not to send him XML files - they have proved time-consuming and problematic in the past - apparently.

I worked on a big project with a PC and the other contributer had a Mac. We always shared XML's to work with each other. It worked perfect without any quality loss. Maybe you can still convince editor to use XML :-)

Another option, if the clip is not to long, is to render the clip out as an Image Sequence and import the images in FCP. I don't like to work with a lot of images, but you don't lose to much quality I guess.

Thanks Toon, and welcome to the forum !
Your suggestion is worth a try. The clip I am FTP'ing is a mere 10 secs test clip . The program will eventually be 4 mins long.