What algorithm does FirstLight use for zooming in Firstlight? Is it the same high quality scaling as is used in HD Link? If so, it seems to me that keyframing zoom and crop in FirstLight would give you better results than doing it in a video editor (depending of course upon the resize algorithms used in the editing software).

Also, does Firstlight make any allowances for interlace when it comes to zooming and cropping? I shoot mostly progressive, but I still occasionally use 60i for fast motion and for things that I know I am going to slow down.

FirstLight (really the metadata correction are performed by the decoder) using Lanzcos resampling throughout. It typically used 16-bit per channel math, even if you calling application is using 8-bit, so the quality is good. Doesn't handle interlaced so well, we are doing our bit to stamp interlaced out. :) For interlaced use you NLE.