I want to see if this makes any sense. Our current work flow is to shoot on the JVC HD100 in 720p HDV and capture via the our Kona Card's Component at 8-bit Uncompressed into Final Cut Pro after it is already on the miniDV tape (we aren't capturing live via component).

Should we be capturing via the Firewire with one of the HDV codecs in Final Cut Pro and then downconvert using the Kona card when we go out to our Beta Deck.

The reason I am asking this is I was messing around and decided to capture using Firewire and an HDV codec and it seemed to look damn good and made for smaller file sizes (I think, didn't do an exhaustive test because I was hoping someone could help me out here :).

I just want to make sure we aren't sacrificing quality AND making a bigger file. All these codecs make my head hurt.

In my observation, compressed out of the JVC HD110 is better than component out. Working with m2t transport files is problemmatic, however. Conversion to an intermediate format like Cineform, is necessary.

hmmmm, m2t files? I am using the HDV 60 easy setup in final cut pro and capturing through firewire. It creates .mov files.

I thought cineform was more for the PC side of things.

The quality of the video out is agnostic AFA the brand of processor. Indeed, I am speaking from the standpoint of a PC user. I have absolutely no experience with FCP. However, I know Cineform will also work with .mov.