I have shot a bunch of footage on my XL-H1 at 1080i/60i and wish to downconvert the footage via Firewire into an SD project in Avid Xpress Pro. Unfortunately, all the downconverted footage is squeezed to fit into 4:3 SD. I shot all footage centered in the frame to allow for the change in aspect ratio, so is there a way to preserve this and avoid the squeeze? Thanks--

"shot all footage in centered in frame" ?

You shouldn't need to bother with centering in frame if you are shooting originally in 16:9 format. Simply shoot in HDV 16:9 ratio and then keep it as 16:9 when down-converting to SD (Unless you actually shot the original footage in 4:3). If the AX-pro settings are correct then it should remain in 16:9 after downloading through the Firewire.

Thanks for your instruction...I was shooting Standard 8mm films centered in frame just in case there was a "center-punch" option when downconverting from the XL-H1. (I understand this to mean a left and right cropping of a 16x9 frame.)

I am confused, though, about your suggestion that I keep the AX Pro project in 16x9 even though it is an SD project. (Probably that's an issue for the Avid users' forum. I thought my project settings restricted me to a 4x3 SD project or a 16x9 HDV project...I must be wrong on that.) Thanks for your help.