Format|settings for converting AVC MPEG-4 footage to import into project

Question

hi.
so the graphic designer for my favourite band dropped a couple of ~1⅓ gig MPEG-4 Movie (.m4v files consisting of footage taken during concerts in 2000|2001 on a handheld digital camcorder) into my lap the other day—& asked me if i could clean it up & split the each show’s file up into segments short enough to upload to YouTube...& while i feel fairly confident i can swing that order once i’ve got the footage in Final Cut, i’d greatly appreciate some advice regarding...making it to that premise. um. basically, if i try to import any of these .m4a files into Final Cut, i get this error:
screenshot → [http://s3.amazonaws.com/ember/67PNmuKRePVvWJfFudHiSKj7kr9PfgzI_o.png]
so...after some preliminary investigation, i take it that i need to convert each of these files into a different format that Final Cut won’t turn its nose up at (—right?). which brings me to the crux of the matter:
§1 · *what format &|or settings* (—compatible with FCP7!—) *would result in the least loss of quality in the process of conversion,* if the original file is as delineated in this screenshot (→ [http://s3.amazonaws.com/ember/AAd0FBegXjXLXqtas8f9xIZa0v0TvrO3_l.png])?
§2 · *what program would you recommend i use to do this* (as yet hypothetical, albeit) *file conversion* (as prescribed in the answer to preceding enquiry)?

Answer 1

hey, great! thanks for the absurdly-prompt response. looks like that’ll do the trick.
though! a minor clarification, mostly just to satisfy my curiosity—
there are five Apple ProRes codecs:
· Apple ProRes 4444
· Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
· Apple ProRes 422
· Apple ProRes 422 (LT)
· Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy)
i’m guessing that—considering this footage is shot with a consumer-level cam, & is only 720x480 besides—the Apple ProRes 422 will be more than enough, right? that’s the one i should be using...riiight? (i mean...i figure anything more than that would be overkill,—or at least a moot point, if the original file doesn’t have anywhere near the level of detail|precision that the more heavy-duty iterations of ProRes affect—) ...is any of this speculation on target?
(i’m mostly concerned on account of the blurb about Chroma Sampling on page 7 of *Apple’s White Paper on the ProRes family* (→ [http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/docs/AppleProRes_White_Paper_July2009.pdf])—since i want to do some pretty hefty colour correction {probably the 3-way color corrector + desaturate highlights & lows filters...though that’s just a hunch} on all these files, & i reeeeeeally don’t want to lose any data that might improve the quality|accuracy|&c. of said corrections.)
—& if it’s at all significant, i may be trying to use the SmoothCam thing on these as well...though this footage is so shaky & erratic i wouldn’t be surprised if trying to make it slightly less emetic is a nonesuch of a lost cause.