Re: Can you get 24p to look like 24pA?

Looks like it is. Look at the DV section copy/paste for easy access:

DV/DVCAM/DVCPRO

These DV 25 formats would normally be edited natively, just like you probably have been for years. What we have now is another alternative for when DV source needs to be composited or color corrected extensively (like through Color). When extensive color correction or compositing is required the additional color space and lower compression gained by using ProRes 422 might make sense.Although we move from 4:1:1 colorspace to 4:2:2 you don't create any more information just because you convert to ProRes 422! Going ProRes 422 stems the losses, so to speak, and gives more calculating room for the compositing or color correction.

If you do convert, the perfect path would be to play out via SDI and capture that directly to ProRes 422, as above, as most professional decks with SDI output from this format do color smoothing to recreate the missing color information on the SDI output. This is a big benefit when compositing or color correcting. We can fake this by adding a 4:1:1 Color Smoothing filter to the clips before batch exporting to ProRes 422 in Standard Definition.

Verdict: Native most of the time, otherwise either capture via SDI directly to ProRes 422 or Batch Convert to ProRes 422 after capture with the 4:1:1 Color Smoothing Filter applied. (Folks in PAL markets you're really going to have to spring for the deck rental as there's no equivalent Color Smoothing filter for 4:2:0. In PAL only DVCPRO support 4:1:1.)

Jeremy