Editing Tips and Tricks

Progressive video is not really recorded progressive on modern video cameras.
Editing software extracts progressive frames from interlaced recording formats.
See wikipedia
If you accidentally shot 1080i24P on the HVX200 or HPX170 then Cinema tools is your friend. Do this:
-Use Log and Transfer to re-wrap as usual. (the Remove Advanced Pulldown checkbox doesn’t help because 1080i24P is NOT advanced pulldown)
-Footage comes in as 1080p30 29.97. It plays really shitty in FCP and you see  interlacing artifacts.
-Start cinema tools
-FIle > Batch Reverse Telecine
-Use these settings:

It takes about the same time as re-wrapping
You end up with 1080p30 23.98 with all the fields removed.
Next time shoot 1080i24PA (Advanced pulldown), that way log and transfer can pull the fields and frames out while it re-wraps into Quicktime.

During a shoot always copy the “CONTENTS” and “LASTCLIP.TXT” to a drive to empty cards, never try to re-wrap files on location!
Best thing is to bring enough cards to make it through the day.
If you bring laptop, card reader & HD, make folders in advance; CARD 1, CARD 2 etc.

Lately I’ve seen FCP skip files or abort transfer in the log & transfer window.
You see a red stop sign with an exclamation point.
This is with a fast laptop 3.06 gHz with 8GB ram.
Only after many tries will it transfer certain files.
See this link on Apple
It is too much of a pain to have to troubleshoot and make sure you have all files on location.