I was playing two XDCAM EX1 sequences (edited native 35mbps VBR), while my Mac was feeding firewire out to my Sony DSR-11 DVCam which then fed a SD JVC monitor video in via RCA.

A 1080p30 sequence played back in real time on the monitor as if something were downscaling it realtime to SD 16:9.

a 720p24 sequence showed only the frame I parked on (no live playback).

There is nothing I can think of to cause FCP to do a real time downconvert out of firewire. The project and timelines were all native EX1.

I've seen FCP do this with other formats, with varying quality, but never tried it with XDCAM.

Craig,

Try this. Go to your video playback settings and de-select the setting that mirrors playback on your desktop. Sorry I'm not more specific, I'm not in front of my FCP.

This will disable playing back in the canvas window and let you play through FW. I had the same problem, different equipment/codecs but same scenario.

Hope it helps!

Paul, I think you've misunderstood. Firewire to monitor works.

Sorry, I guess I did. I don't know what you mean. never had it happen!