I should probably post this in an After Effects forum somewhere, but I figured that a lot of people here probably do this everyday, so here goes: I've downloaded a clip from a royalty free footage website that is 1920x1080, 29.97fps, Photo-JPEG QT.  In need to get this into a 25i Avid project.  This has been my workflow, please correct me if I'm missing something somewhere:

1) Opened AE, imported the download clip, pulled it into a comp. 

2) In Interpret Footage the frame rate is automatically set to 29.97, field order is Lower Field (I left it at that as I do not know what the field order is)

3) Sent the comp to Render Queue, settings set to QT Animation, 1920x1080, 25fps, Upper Field. Render

4) Created a new 25i Avid project, imported the new clip as Upper Field, 1:1 MXF.

At 16:9 the footage looks OK and I'll probably use it this way, I've just noticed that the 25fps clip is shorter than the original 29.97 fps clip when i have them side by side. I've also noticed that when I set the Format tab to 1080i and Import the same clip as DNxHD120, it looks a little fuzzy when compared to the 1:1 clip when I edit them into the same timeline (wrong DNxHD perhaps?)

Any ideas of comments will be most welcome as I'm a complete noob when it comes to this.

Using MCA 2.8.3 XP (no DNXcel)

All HDTV formats has field dominance as upper filed first. I would try to change this.

Don't forget to set your composition in AE as 1920x1080 and 25fps.

When you place the footage as a layer in the AE composition, don't forget switch on the Frame Blending. It's in row of switches in right to layer's name.

The same good quality transcoding job can do for you the Premiere Pro or Vegas. In Vegas you have to set in Project settings "Blend fields" in Deinterlace method.

PP