I shot some stuff in 24f HDV with my A1. Now I am trying to use the downconvert to SD in order to capture the footage and give it to an editor (they didn`t tell me they had other footage that was SD). Here`s what I did so far

Premiere CS2 - Setup a new 24 frames project and captured the footage. When I captured it it ended up being 29.97 interlaced. I was told on another for thats how the camera makes its 24f, its not really progressive, its designed for interlaced editing when being down converted...is this true? If so how do you make it progressive again once the editor has it? The interlacing on movement is blatant and looks horrible. What kind of project should he use? Am I using the right method to capture it? Why isn`t it capturing at 23.976 like the 24 HDV does?

You should capture it as 24 fps progressive HDV footage. Then what I would do is export a full size H.264 QT and give him that. It should stay 24 fps. If you capture it 29.97 it's going to look crappy.

H.264 doesn`t render color well, always looks very washed out. It seems to play fine outside of premiere. I also put it in a 29.97 project and it exports fine interlaced...not sure how that will play with the other cameras footage, I think it was a DVX100B? This stuff is so confusing. I also have to try and get it on DVD, is there a better codec to use that won`t mess with the color etc?

I've never seen any color degradation in H.264. You could do it as an Animation, but that will take up lots of room.