A friend shot some footage for me using his Sony HVR-V1U HDV camera. He gave me the clips on an external drive in MPEG-4 format. I'm unable to bring these clips in the project (I'm using Vegas Pro 8). Not sure if this is relevant, but I'm still stuck in the SD world and use miniDV tape from my Sony PD170. He is using a Hard Disk Recorder. Is there anything I can do with these clips to make them work in Vegas or do I need to ask my friend to export them in another format? Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

He needs to give you the clips in their native format and that should m2t.
V8 Pro handles these very easily.
Even if your final project is SD, you'll still benefit from the extra image size, especially if you want to pan and/or zoom a clip.

THANKS! That's what I'll do.