Progressive frame rate

Question

This is my first foray into HD, so my apology for this rudimentary question.
How can I tell if an HD footage is progressive or interlaced?
I have 30min worth of HDCAM. The post house that did the transfer told me that they're 1080p25 (I have no reason to doubt them). I'm just curious if there's any way I can double-check to make sure that they're 25p and not 25i.
I imported a sample clip into FCP and looked under 'Item Properties'. I only saw the following data but no mentioning of whether it's progressive or interlaced:
Vid Rate: 25fps
Frame Size: 1920 x 1080
Compressor: Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
Pixel Aspect: Square
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd)
By the way, does progressive video have a field dominance?
Thanks,
td

Answer 1

Thanks for the detailed answer. I'm based in Vietnam and none of the local post houses have much experience in doing progressive HD since most of their work is for TVCs. I had to go to Bangkok to do the full-grade transfer (from 35mm) to HDCAM and conform in FCP. I specifically asked for 25P frame rate because this will finish in film. I wonder if they messed up (I hope that's not the case).
I just need to clarify a few things.
The reason my question came up was because as I understand it, progressive video should have no field dominance. Is this correct?
All these footages have Upper field dominance. Is this a definite indication that they're interlaced? Are there any type of HD that has an Upper field dominance?
I did a few test and got mixed result. But I'm not sure if this is because my system is not set up to do anything more than DV, and I don't have a 1080p25 Codec in my system. These are the tests I did:
Since the post house has a more recent version of FCP than I do, they gave me an XML file of the conformed project. I imported the XML, with the 'Override with setting from XML' box checked. Everything is red on the timeline, even after I changed all the timeline's settings to match the footages' settings.
However, when I create a new project, set the Sequence Settings to 1920x1080, Square pixel, Upper Field Dominance, Compressor as Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2. Import a clip directly into the FCP project and place it on this time line. It's gray.
I created a new timeline with same setting, except for Field Dominance set to NONE, the clip is still gray when placed on the timeline.
On the other hand, when I looked at one of the footages at full-size, frame by frame, on my Cinema display (I don't have an HD broadcast monitor), the edges look pretty sharp. For ex. I have a shot of a swish pan following a car speeding across the screen. There are some horizontal streaks in the background, but these look like motion blurs rather than interlaced artifacts. The edge of the car is sharp, with no jaggy. This seems to indicate that it's progressive.
My big worry is that the post house did the transfer (to tape) at 25P, but captured at 50i or 25i by mistake. Then again, if the Codec on the footages says Uncompressed 8-bit, then the captured footages should be the same as what's on the master tape, shouldn't it?
I'm thoroughly confused at this point. Anything that helps to shed light on this would be greatly appreciated.
I apologize for the lengthy note, but I figured it may help to give some backgrounds on the project. I need to get this sorted out before going online. This could be a very costly fix, especially since I'm paying for this film out of my own pocket. But at least if I catch it on time, I can minimize the damage.
Thanks again.
td