Hey guys,
I am shooting a number of short interviews over the next few weeks, about 60 total. and its going to be about 7-10 min of footage for each. these interviews will ultimately be used on the web, after some editing in FCP and AE. I am using FCP to bring the footage from the camera to my hard drive. I have a couple of questions:

1) what is the ideal camera setup for video to edit then used on web (keying and color correction mostly)?

2) what is the "Easy Setup" in FCP that i should use? The program defaulted to HDV 1080i 24fps, but i am assuming that is because thats what i have the camera set to.

3) I need several people to look at this video to chose what they want to have in the final pieces and exporting and compressing just takes too long to do to SO much footage(about 30-45 min for each person). Is there another method that i can get this raw footage to several people, using different systems (some Macs some PCs) in a quicktime format or WMV format? Perhaps to burn the RAW data onto a DVD and give it to them? I have tried, but people cant view it, some components are missing from Quicktime so they are unable to view. Anyone know if i need a plug-in for this to work on someone elses machine and what it is? Or if you have a quicker method of getting the footage off of the camera and putting it into a reference video that would be great too.

Thanks for any help in advance.

If you just want a transfer of raw footage for a client to view, this is what I am trying.
I bought a Phillips DVDR 3390 DVD Player/Recorder from Wal-Mart for $129.
I set the XH-A1 to letterbox and HD downconvert and used the supplied AV cable out of the cam's AV 1 port and into the DVD recorder's front composite input. It's recording straight to DVD as I write.
I will have to play it back on my big screen to see what it looks like, but it's looking pretty good on my 15" HD monitor while I'm recording in SD letterbox.
This recorder also has component inputs on the back. That's why I bought it but I haven't tried those yet. I was in a hurry tonight, :-)

If you just want a transfer of raw footage for a client to view, this is what I am trying.
I bought a Phillips DVDR 3390 DVD Player/Recorder from Wal-Mart for $129.
:-)
Tried that back when pretty much the same box was $499. Laser died after about a year. Thought my other gear was going bad. Relief and dismay when I found out what actually happened.

$129 for a year of a thow-away isn't bad though. If things get "quirky" check the Phillips first

This recorder also has component inputs on the back.

Not to disappoint, but I'm quite sure thats an outtie, not an innie :)

Bill

My Philips DVDR machine also has a Firewise input on the front panel. Set the camera to down-convert and set the DVDR to record from CAM2. The pictures are sharper than composite, and true widescreen. My DVDR has a choice of recording times. I normally use M3 (3 hours) for TV programme time-shift. I'm sure that would be good enough for your previews.