Hey there! I can finally post here. I am hoping someone can explain my BEST method of taking tapes shot on the Z1U at 1080i and using the downconversion to get into Final Cut Pro 4 (all I have to use) as DV. I want to keep the quality as best as possible but cannot work in 1080i on my Mac. I have the camera settings down, using squeeze for the image output. I really just need to know what settings to use in FCP4 to retain as much as possible. I got it to work of course but am not sure I have the ideal settings for it.

Thanks in advance!

Welcome Clinton! If you're on FCP 4 then you don't really have much of a choice. Assuming that you shot the tape in HDV 1080i mode, put the camera in playback mode and choose the following menu options:

IN/OUT REC > i.LINK CONV > HDV->DV CONV ON
IN/OUT REC > DOWN CONVERT > SQUEEZE

It sounds like you already have that all figured out though. In FCP you don't need to do anything special. As far as your computer is concerned, the Z1 is just a regular DV camera. The Z1 does all the downconversion internally and sends the data to your computer as widescreen standard definition DV. You just need to be sure you're set to capture anamorphic 16:9 DV and you're good to go.

So if it's working for you then I don't think there's anything else you can do with FCP 4. BTW, do you really have FCP 4 as opposed to FCP 4.5? The upgrade to 4.5 is free and I imagine it's still available at apple.com. You should upgrade to 4.5 if possible as that's a better version IIRC.

Ah! Some good info there. Thanks. I transfered one tape a few days ago. I thought that the footage didn't look "great". I realized the display gets reduced in quality to ease playback and editing while your working. I then found Capture Scratch folder and opened the transfered MOV file and it was smaller than I thought it would or should be. After what you jsut told me I opened it with ffMpegX and it says the file is dvvideo; yuv411p; 720x480. Is this considered "full resolution" for DV 16:9? I am a video newb but as an audio engineer I understand some tech. Thanks.

That sounds right, all DV is 720x480 but widescreen is stretched when you play it back on a 16:9 TV. Rather than re-hash this whole discussion, have a look at the following thread where I think we've literally beaten the topic to death. That thread revolves around the XL2, but when you put the Z1 into downconvert mode it behaves exactly the same.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83910