Nikon D3S sequence settings
 

The camera uses 1280x720 24fps .AVI, These are brought onto the hard drive using a CF card reader, then imported into FCP.
What sequence setting should I use? I've tried many settings but every clip I drag to the timeline needs rendered.
My ultimate goal is to produce a Blu-ray disk.

D3s Final Cut
 

This is actually very easy and similar to 5DMkII.

Copy CF Card files to working drive.
Using compressor convert to Apple ProRes.
Import the New Apple ProRes Files to Final Cut.
Now, do whatever you want in FCP!

Good Luck.

Tom

Thank you, I tried that originally but things got confused along the way. I tried it again tonight and was able to burn a high quality Blu-ray that plays on my TV. It's my first BD and I want to thank you again. I used FCP 7 and then used Sony DVD Architect to author the BD.

D3s Final Cut
 

Great Glad to hear it worked out for you. Still in DVD Studio Pro and haven't done Sony yet. Hoping these two companies sort out the politics and get us BD on Studio Pro.

How do you like the D3s so far? I'm just testing it now for a commercial project in two weeks.

I started with Vegas in 2002 and switched to Mac four years ago. I kept up with the updates for Vegas because I like it, but I'm determined to learn Final Cut. I'm primarily a wedding photographer, I like to mix in video in my slideshow/movies. Burning BD has been a long term goal.

The D3s can shoot at ISO 12,800 and the files look good with low noise. The high end is ISO 102,400 which is just unbelievable to me. I'm a rookie at video with this camera. I shot some video at one wedding and realized how hard it is to produce professional video. Most of my experiments are of my one year old Grandson. Video at ISO 12,800 is very good as long as exposure and WB are nailed. I'm used to shooting RAW and video is like going back to jpeg as far as WB is concerned. Preset of WB is very important. It's been fun so far. The coupled loved the little bit of video I mixed into their wedding slideshow.