Down convert XH-A1 footage to DVD recorder
 

I have a Panasonic DVD recorder that I use for making quick dubs from Final Cut Pro. Mostly for timecode burns. It works great even from the composite output from the AJA box. These are down converted dubs thru the AJA Kona.

Today for the first time I hooked up my XH-A1 60i recorded footage direct to the Panasonic DVD recorder thru the DV out on the cam to the DV in on the recorder and made a dub. Well it looked bad. Thinking the down convert from the camera should look pretty good since its all digital. Boy was I wrong. Video looked like a VHS dub. I had the settings on the recorder at best 1 hour record. Am I missing something here? Anyone else do this type of recording with good results?
I have had this recorder for over a month so returning it isn’t an option anymore.
Any suggestions would be great.

The only time I've used that was to dub from HDV to a DVCAM tape. I switched it to the downconvert mode and the DVCAM tape looked great, no problems at all. Naturally it didn't look as good as HDV, but it looked as good as original DVCAM from a bigger chip camera. There must be some setting somewere on the recorder that downgraded things.

I've had a couple of the Panasonic units and they worked well with SD footage straight from the camera. I've done that a couple of times. Great time saver.

I'm wondering if you're still outputting HDV from the Canon. This could cause the problem, or it might not work altogether.

SD downsampling in the camera to the computer from my A1 works very well. Great looking video, if you don't count my ham fisted camera work. If it's not a setting problem in the camera, perhaps there's a setting wrong in the DVD recorder but I cannot imagine what it is.

You may be stuck with straight composite inputs to the Panasonic, but it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Thanks Bill.
I did some more test and it just looks bad to me. I might be to picky but the camera down convert is not that good to me. I plugged the analog out to my SD Sony TV and that looked bad as well so Im thinking the Kona card from my mac does a heck of a job down converting the HD signal.

That's really odd. My own experience and all of the reports I've read indicate that the in camera downconvert should look good. Much better than the VHS quality you report. I think there's something wrong in your configuration somewhere although I cannot pinpoint where it might be.

I have done a lot of down converting to TV from XH-A1 (even with auto letterboxing) and it looks just as good as any SD tv can be, better than most broadcasts for sure. There must be some setting wrong somewhere, or you do not remember what good old SD looks like...

[QUOTE=or you do not remember what good old SD looks like...[/QUOTE]
Thats funny. I work in SD everyday. I shoot with a SDX-900 at my day job.
The video looks cleaner but washed out with the DV input to the DVD but the analog version has much better color and blacks but not as clean. I need to bring the video into FCP and do some more test. the camera settings I used are.

playback STD auto
COMP OUT.....1080i/480i
AV-DV...........off
down-conv......on
letterbox.......off

The DVD recorder is a Panasonic DMR-EZ28. Settings on the DVD recorder are very basic. I have it set to record at its Highest quality XP 1 Hour.

Thanks to all for the input I am getting. I like this site and have lurked here for some time but never posted. Much appreciated.

Erik