Best way by using MPEG STREAMCLIP to convert MPEG2 Muxed at 720 x 404 ?

[DTRON]

Greetings everyone,

New to the forum and I happen to be a newbie filmmaker / editor as well Hi !

I hope someone can help me out for i am not sure how to processed next

I have a SONY DCR-SR80 HDD video camera that records in MPEG2 Muxed at an odd resolution of 720 x 404

FCP's Compressor was a no go so by googling I found this free app. named MPEG STREAMCLIP from Squared 5 ...

now the problem is that I don't know what is the best way (quality wise) to convert so I can take and edit in FCP ?

for example should I :

1. export as a .MOV, MPEG4 or AVI, DV, etc...?

2. What compression to use;
H264, DV codec or the Apple Intermediate Codec ?

3. What Frame Size should I use
I tried selecting 720 x 480 and the picture was stretched horizontally
the one that worked was 854 x 480.. but its an odd size, will FCP work with it or should I just let it be at 720 x 404 ?

4. should I De-interlace the Video in MPEG Streamclip or wait till FCP ?

5. In FCP in Easy Setup.....what format should I choose
DV-NTSC Anamorphic for ex...?


Thank you for taking the time

[greymalkin]

first of all, what sort of edits are you doing? if you just need to trim out bits and add transitions you could use something like womble mpeg video editor or i believe videoredo...you will lose no quality.

If you want to do other things like color correction then you'll need to feed it to an editor..the 704x404 is a widescreen resolution...I'm not familiar with FCP so I'll let the experts chime in on that.

Edit: Sorry I re-read your post and saw you've already done your cuts with the streamclip program :P.