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I'm still having trouble importing animations into Final Cut Express.
When I bring an animation into the FCE browser, the fidelity is perfect. But as soon as I put it on the timeline, the quality is degraded. Also I cannot export it from FCE in good quality. What am I doing wrong?

- What's your source format? (Dimensions!)
- What's your project settings in FC?
- Rendered or not?

First of all, thank you for always replying to my questions- that's a huge service!

I have tried all of the export dimensions on the animation, and all of the dimension setups on FCE. Do they have to match?
I'm not sure what you mean by "rendered." Yes, I render the FCE project before exporting. Does the TVP project need to be rendered before importing?

Of course the dimensions should match. You have to distinguish between source format, production format, and delivery format. They can be all different, or the can be all the same. Example:

I have a TVP project of 1920 x 1080 (full HDTV). My client wants to get PAL 16:9. So what I do is to export sequences from TVP in PAL 16:9, and set Final Cut to PAL 16:9 as well. I still have the large TVP project files which allow me to export for cinema quality 35 mm if required. Of course you will use the same frame rate (fps) in all programs.

Next important is the codec you use for your intermediate files (the ones you export from TVP and import into Final Cut). They always should use a lossless codec, like Animation or PNG (highest quality). What you export from Final Cut is different: you may render a high quality version for your client (of course), and you may have a compressed version for your own website as well.

Inside Final Cut there are some options what you see during work, please look up the manual for this, and an explanation of "rendered" stuff (basically this means that temporary video files have to be created before you can watch your edited result lfuently).

In the opening configuration, I choose 1920 x 1080 field: Progressive From File: Film 10s dbls Aspect Ratio: 1

In the export window, I choose Format: Quicktime mode:RGBA Alpha: PreMult.

In the FCE easy set-up window, I pick HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50

Anything look wrong? Any information I'm missing?

Hi Bulleyes,

Could you please post a screenshot of the normal and degraded quality ?

In the FCE easy set-up window, I pick HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50

What happen if you export without compression ? Maybe the codec is degrading the quality of the video too much ?