I just shot some clips in HDV (50i) and wanted to downconvert them to SD in camera. I set the Playback Standard option to HDV and HD Downconvert option to ON. When i connected the firewire cable these options became greyed out and when I opened premiere pro 1.5.1 project (i used DV widescreen template) my camera returned the message PLAYBACK STD LOCKED INCOMPATIBLE VIDEO INPUT which according to the manual means that i attempted to input video signal in a standard different from that set. Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance

The menu option choices such as Playback Standard, etc. need to be made before connecting via FireWire.

Thanks Chris but thats exactly what I did. Made the choices and than connected the firewire cable.

Ok so i figured it out. I can capture the DV footage using the camera's downconvert option with no problem. The message shows up later when I close the capture window and click in the timeline window which is completely understandable as video signal then is different from the playback standard set in camera.
However I have one more probably silly question. When I played back the captured DV files in Windows Media Player I noticed in the properties that the aspect ratio of the file is 4:3 actual, 16:9 displayed. Is this correct?

im subscirbing cause im going to be doing the same thing once i get my camera

the aspect ratio of the file is 4:3 actual, 16:9 displayed. Is this correct?

Yes, it's correct. DV is a 4:3 format so the 16:9 image is squeezed into that making it anamorphic. The footage is tagged as widescreen, and is played at 16:9 instead of 4:3.

Thanks Tom