Editing Canon 7D footage without without loss of quality

Question

First time poster, long time reader, so please go easy – you guys all started somewhere, now its time for me J
I’ve done video editing for a while now, only as a hobby though, with consumer camcorders and basic editing software. I absolutely love doing it and now I’ve taken the step up to a 7D and been asked to do a music clip for a band (call it timing). By the way I am using Adobe CS4 and CS5.
My questions (you’ll have to excuse my vagueness – I am newb when it comes to the technical side) is what should I shoot it in? 60fps or 25fps? NTSC or PAL?. It would only be for Youtube and perhaps DVD/Blu-Ray to distribute elsewhere, but I still would like the highest quality possible, and from the past, there’s nothing worse than shooting in the wrong format – so I wanted to try get this right the first time. Hence my post
What really confuses me is the loss of quality from the camera to online. I find that sometimes I have to import the footage (from other video cameras I have had – Sony and Canon MiniDV’s, Panasonic HS300, GoPro Hero etc) into Premiere, edit the clips, export to a file, then import into AE and add effects, then export once more. Each time I try different formats and each time the quality differs but I seem to lose plenty of quality along the way. I know it’s not simple but for this music clip I would like to learn a bit more beforehand, what the correct workflow would be to minimise loss of quality, so I am better prepared.
Thanks in advance,
Alex

Answer 1

My questions is what should I shoot it in? 60fps or 25fps? NTSC or PAL?.
That's way too broad a question for a forum about NLE software. The simple answer is, "whatever you want." The less-simple answer is, "it depends." Whether you shoot 60fps or 30fps or 25fps or 24fps or XXfps is all about the look you want, so experiment. NTSC and PAL don't have any application to HD video (despite their regular use to label certain HD formats as such).
What really confuses me is the loss of quality from the camera to online. I find that sometimes I have to import the footage (from other video cameras I have had – Sony and Canon MiniDV’s, Panasonic HS300, GoPro Hero etc) into Premiere, edit the clips, export to a file, then import into AE and add effects, then export once more. Each time I try different formats and each time the quality differs but I seem to lose plenty of quality along the way. I know it’s not simple but for this music clip I would like to learn a bit more beforehand, what the correct workflow would be to minimise loss of quality, so I am better prepared.
With relatively few exceptions, you don't have to worry about this--you certainly don't have to worry about this with 7D footage and Premiere Pro and After Effects. Both programs support the footage natively; it's more a matter of learning how to use the suite applications in a manner that avoids exporting to intermediate files. Dynamic Link is one way, but you can also import a Premiere Pro project/sequence directly into AE. A high-resolution intermediate is another way. There is a whole section of the help documents that describe the interoperability between the applications; reviewing it closely will help get you up to speed, so that you can ask more specific questions about workflow, etc.