Downconvert XDCAM EX to ProRes SD - best quality method

Hello
We shoot XDCAM EX (1920x1080p), and we produce SD Prores HQ 422 files (720x576i). These are further transcoded to MPEG2 10mbit for TV transmission.
I believe that the conversion from HD to SD in Premiere is causing an excessive quality drop, mainly by reducing detail and increasing softness.
Does anyone have any experience of this kind of conversion, if so I'd be interested in hearing about other methods/tweaks.
The Prores format is not a requirement - we could move to a different mezzanine format. The MPEG2 file format is a requirement for the time being, although we are looking at h.264 mp4 for this (same bitrate).
Thanks in advance
Jeremy Smith
Production Director

I use the HD2SD method to produce DVD Mpeg2 files (do a forum search for HD2SD) you may be able to modify this for non dvd files.

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