Can I record from the timeline of my NLE (Speed Edit) to my Z5? I can see the signal coming through the view finder, but the Z5 won't record the signal.

VERY few (if any) NLEs play HDV out from Firewire from the timeline. Shorter answer: almost certainly: "no".

What you're seeing in the VF might be SD - try and record that.

Thanks for the reply, but the video I'm seeing is HDV. I ran a test with some regular SD footage and the Z5 recorded that footage. It was formatted with the bars on the side just like any other SD footage. When I went back to the HDV footage, it was just that, HDV footage.

The timeline plays in the view finder. I get some kind of tape counter action, but no video on playback.

Any composit in the Timeline, such as a plain cross desolve, needs to be rendered to the applicable format (HD), prior to the writing to tape action. So you probably have to render the Timeline first.

It sounds like you are determining that the footage you are seeing is HDV footage just becasue it is in the 16 x 9 format. That may not be the case. From what I understand most edit systems take in the HDV footage and convert it to something the edit system can use easier. It is possible that you are seeing HD footage but not HDV footage. I am not familiar with your edit system. I use Premire Pro CS3. In order to record from a PP CS3 timeline out to the camcorder, the computer has to have control over the camcorder via firewire and then CS3 starts a transcoding process, converting the footage back to HDV. During the transcoding process it will start recording on the camcorder and it will record until the program is complete. Do you have a setting that will allow HDV export?

Jo, Greg,

Thank you both for your responses. When I import my footage Speed Edit captures it as an m2t file. It seems that you are both saying that I need to convert it back to HDV.

Jo, I will try rendering the clip and see if that allows me to copy to the camera.

Greg, I am just getting my feet wet in HD with Speed Edit, but I do have PP 3. What settings do I need to use for transcoding?