I recently upgraded from my trusty XL1 to a XL2. This year I will be making a new dvd on National Park wildlife. Since this will be in a final dvd format, could you give me some recommendations on what to use for aspect, frame rate and maybe some outdoor presets.

I have started the shooting process this year with the XL1 however now I'm kind of leaning toward the 16:9 ratio. This will not be transferred to film just dvd and I do want the best quality. Thank you

As I think your film is more like a documentary, I would just shoot 60i interlaced, no 24p or 30p, unless you rather want that movie kind of look.
And I would definately take 16/9 aspect ratio, it's better picture quality, and many dvd's now are in widescreen, so that's no problem.
Best regards,

Agreed.

Bill, for a doc on DVD 60i is perfectly all right, and so is 16:9. If you want very many docs on television (The Discovery Channel, for example), you'll see that more and more are shot in 16:9.

As far as presets go, experiment yourself--find what looks good to you, after all, it's your work of art, not ours!

Jay