Quote: And I'm giving the FX1 the benefit of the doubt by making the DVD source from the original HDV footage, not a DV down-rez, because by using DV down-rez, you convert the original 4:2:0 MPEG-2 down to 4:1:1 DV, and then again to 4:2:0 MPEG-2 for the DVD authoring.

But Barry - no-one interested in best-possible quality would down-rez to a DV intermediate! Surely they could go to uncompressed, or one of the high-quality codecs like huffyuv or wavelet, using a high-quality rescaling algorithm and perhaps a touch of (re)sharpening as per John Jay's suggestions?

Having read this thread, I'm left wondering about the quality of the down-rez procedure in the MPEG encoder - could it be a factor in lack of sharpness issue?

Yes thanks Barry, good post. It has me thinking. And this is what I have come up with.
The Sony FX1 is a hard cam to compare with for this issue. As it shoots interlaced causing it's own problems in down conversion and also using pixel shift to enhance its resolution, so it is not the best example of a true SD to HD or Film downconversion comparison.
That said. Take some 720x480 FX1 DV footage, deinterlace, save as uncompressed. Then take the HDV footage (the same slow pan over some textured scene. Make it an outside shot with lots of distance. Close in shots will not show the difference)deinterlace, save as uncompressed as well. Colour correct the footage extensively, composite in a few objects/titles and FX or what have you. Then downrez. Check out the difference. Especially in the background.
Sharp lines, like your tile idea would be a good example if it was tilted on an angle. This would demonstrate the effective anti-aliasing and colour space increase of the down conversion. Hard lines such as stair railings with high contrast lighting would be a good example as well.
I was skeptical as well untill I saw a DVX progressive compared to a HD10 progressive. Both letterboxed 16:9. I then realized HDV did have a place in the 16:9 SD world.

Since I specifically want to use the FX1 to perform two functions as a wide camera view and possibly alternate camera view by pan/zoom/crop both to output in SD on DVD this issue of the best way to downrez is probably worth a thread of its own at some time. This will be a learning experience just like learning the most effective way to make compatible DVD's was in the last few years. IT might also differentiate between the various NLE's and their choices for downrez algorithms/parameters. Comments from David Newman would be welcome.

Ron Evans