I just taped several interviews yesterday with Sony V1U in 1080i, and I captured via Neo HDV (settings: FilmScan1, no pulldown, straight to CF avi). When I played back via MS Media Player or Media Player Classic, it wasn't sharp at all. When I re-captured via either CF or Vegas 8 into m2t files, and played back via Nero player, the footage was very sharp, but when I converted into CF avi, it lost the sharpness. So I know the original footage is crisp... I'm just having to figure out capture settings. I tried with both regular interlaced and de-interlacing and I didn't see a difference in sharpness.

I then rendered the CF avi file (that originally appeared slightly blurry via Media Player) into an avi file that Nero could play, and that file was very sharp also. Has anyone seen this where the original avi capture/playback is not sharp?

As you are discovered, it is not the CineForm issue as all the data is in the CineForm file as you discover with rendering to a file the Nero plays, it is either the playback software or your graphics card that is bluring your output. It is never advisable to use MS Media Player, use Media Player Classic instead for general purposes, and VirtualDub if you want to see your pixel data at 1:1.