iPhone 4 movies into Final Cut Pro?

Hi,
I recently bought an iPhone 4 and after I make movies with it (great resolution, btw) I like to throw it in FCP for editing. After a long time rendering and editing, I notice that the output video after exporting is quite lower in quality. It's not as awesome anymore. I tried messing with the compression options but nothing gave me as good quality. Does anyone know if it's possible to keep the same video quality after rendering, editing and exporting?

Thank you so much!

I don't know what format iphones save movies in, but you should always make sure the original format and the sequence settings match. If you're rendering for a long time, I'd bet that the formats are not matching. Select the video file and press Command-I to get some more info on it. If it's an mov in h.264, you may need to convert to a format that's better for editing. You could drop it into Compressor and convert it some HDV format.

Whatever format you use, be sure to choose Audio/Video settings and pick a sequence preset that matches your footage.

I don't know how big of a video iphones make but perhaps you're exporting it too large. If it's got small or normal dimensions like 720x480 and you're exporting it to 1440x900 or something, it's going to look terrible. So you might want to look at your export settings to make sure they're more in line with the original movie.

So you need to tell us:

- what format and dimensions the original video is (by selecting it in the Finder and pressing Command-I

- what your FCP sequence settings are

- how you are exporting the finished movie

Oneironaut, thank you SO much for your so helpful reply!

According to the 'get info' window, my iPhone makes:
Kind: Quick Time Movie
Dimensions: 1280 x 720
Codecs: H.264, ACC
Total bit rate: 10,667

I had a look at "Sequence Presets" and the selected preset is DV NTSC 48kHz with frame size 720x480; Editing Timebase: 29.97 fps

And I'm exporting as follows:

Compression: H.264
Quality: High
Key frame rate: 24
Dimensions: 424x318 (current)

To be 100% honest, I trimmed the original .mov in quicktime before importing it to FCP and the get info window says the dimensions of my trimmed video are 640x360 - I had not noticed the trimming had reduced the dimensions, though the picture still looks great.

I dragged the .mov into compressor but I have no idea how to make it more HD. Any ideas?

Sorry about such newbie questions - you've been of GREAT help!

Be sure you drag the ORIGINAL mov into Compressor (the h.264 that is 1280x720) and from the Settings tab Settings/Destinations window are many presets you can choose from. There is a whole category of High Definition presets. It's really up to you to decide which one you want to work with, as long as you import it into a sequence set for that format.

Usually if you try to edit a clip into a sequence that has different settings, a dialogue box comes up that asks if you'd like to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings. Make sure your preferences are set up to do this. In the Editing tab of User Preferences it's the very last option, Auto Conform Sequence.