Fuzzy Wuzzy On Play

Just switched from imovie11 to FinalCutProX. I'm shooting with a Canon Vixia HV30 and blowing it big time somewhere along the line and not sure where.

The goal is to shoot a talking head video in front of a green screen in High Definition. I initially set my camera to manual settings and HDV30 but I couldn't get anything to come out in focus so I took the cowards way out and set the camera on auto. I'm not shooting for Spielberg and at least what I ended up with looked somewhat crisper. However it doesn't look so crisp when it starts to play in FCProX. It immediately goes a little fuzzy. I also can't seem to get anything other than 960X540 29.7 fps. I was aiming for 1280 X 720.

I am admittedly an amateur at this but I thought I'd had it down today and spent hours getting 3 5 minute videos and 12 hours later I've nothing I can use. I could use some help.

"I also can't seem to get anything other than 960X540 29.7 fps. I was aiming for 1280 X 720."

That's a setting in your camera. You need to look in the manual.

jw, are you sure the video output is set to HDV, not DV?

Check your playback preferences. Make sure they are set to high quality.

I've verified that my setting were HDV as opposed to DV on the camera. I don't think it's a camera settings thing. I think it's an import issue that occurred in iMovie11. When you import it prompts you with a warning not to import in original size and I'm thinking I lost it there?

I'm creating a project workflow in Bento that includes every conceivable setting that might impact outcome on the camera, iMovie 11 and Final Cut Pro Forum. I'm going to do some experimenting tomorrow and I'll share my settings with everyone and upload some videos if I think it might help. Maybe something will jump out.

John

jw wrote: I … I think it's an import issue that occurred in iMovie11. …

iMovie doesn't handle interlaced internally.
We (a few iMovie afficionados around the globe) made a website about this issue, some years ago ...
sites.google.com/site/theimovieoutputproject/

in short: it imports interlaced, but on further processing it forces to deinterlace - therefor, it offers to deinterlace on import (1920/2=960). for 1080p/720p you can stay with the original res.

your device records i (and anamorphic, 1440 instead of 1920) - which is fine in FCPX. you shouldn't notice any loss on export.-