I am hoping that the HDV footage I shot on my XH-A1 will playback and at the same time downconvert to SD. I have my A1 connected to my Sony GV D1000 deck and am trying to let the HD camera roll and send the signal to the Sony deck converted already. I have hooked up a firewire connection to both units. Is it possible to downconvert this way?

Opps I just answered my own question. I unplugged the firewire cable from the camera replugged it in and the HD>SD conversion is no longer greyed out...and works.
It's a beautiful thing!

It's a beautiful thing!

Unless you have a PAL camera, in which case there is a flickering line that makes the footage unusable. Glad you got yours working though.

Richard

Shoot in HDV and edit in HDV then output to SD. You won't regret it. Seriously why do the downgrade to a second tape? I don't get it. Shooting in HDV will future proof your work, and quite honestly HDV just looks superior to SD even when down rezed to ProRes422 and output to compressor to go to DVDSP and from there to DVD.
The only thing you'll gain is CRT monitoring while you edit, which you could still get by using your camera or an HV20 to spool. Monitoring on LCD is getting better, and colour profiling on an Apple display works pretty good.
I'm ranting, just my 2cents worth.

I definitely agree with Wayne. I do all my conversion in post (using Vegas). Why? This gives me opportunity to zoom&pan during the edit w/o jeopardizing the end result. I cannot see why I should make the conversion using the camera.