FCP Canon 7D H.264 workflow

Hello,

I'm testing workflow for a Canon 7D through FCP.

I recently imported the H.264 clips directly into FCP, and edited a test sequence from that. I then exported a quicktime to send to the lab to be transferred to HDCam SR for a projection test.

When I exported this quicktime (current settings, trying to keep it all native) I noticed it was only about 500MB for a 12 minute sequence. However, if you look at the individual clips, a 60 second clip is about 400-450MB. Why is the exported Quicktime so small? I was expecting it to be at least 6 or 7 GB based on the size of the files created by the camera. Is this an H.264 thing? Where is the extra data going?

In the future we will be converting to pro-res for the edit, but I wanted to try and keep everything native for the test in case converting to pro-res adds any kind of additional compression to the footage. (does it?)

Thanks for any insight you might have!

-K.

I see in the new ProRes line, there is an option to use 10-bit color sampling. Anyone know if the 7D is acquiring 10-bit to make that worth while?

HandyGeek