I am trying to export a 1080i/60 HDV clip/sequence same as source.

As many of you know, the error message is "CANNOT EXPORT GOP MEDIA SAME AS SOURCE."

Essentially I want a full res Quicktime "master."   What's the best way?

QUESTION #1: If I do transcode to export, what is THE best/most accurate transcode setting to use in your estimation?

QUESTION #2: I tried exporting as "HDV" but it's multiplexed at an .m2t file...and I haven't really worked with that...I tried to take that .m2t file into COMPRESSOR...but didn't seem to work.  Any ideas of what to do with the .m2t file?

Thanks for any insight.

Don't go back to HDV for your export. It's a fixed long GOP format which is ok for aquisition but poor for mastering. You really want to go with a frame based codec like DNX.

File size will increase significantly but you will have a file that will look great and AMA back into Avid if need be.

Thanks Pat...sounds like a good plan...

I suppose the DNXhD/H.264 route is usually the way to go.

What say you re: the second question, namely the .m2t file.   Why does AVID have the HDV export setting to create .m2t files...what does one do with those? Thanks.