I sometime do some shooting for television and they are quite happy with me shooting editing and delivering on a mini DV tape (DVCAM format).

I edit on a Mac Powerbook Pro with FCP 6.02

However, I do have the possibility the shoot in HDV as well, and I was told I would earn in definition even when downconverted to DV.

Is this so?

And if I do go about it what would be best to maintain definition:

1. capturing a downconverted DVCAM directly from the camera?
2. editing in HDV and exporting in DVCAM?

I have tried exporting some HDV material directly to tape from an HDV timeline and the results where pretty terrible.

Things looked a bit better when I imported the HDV material into a PAL anamorphic timeline and exported from there to tape. But it didn't look that good compared to DVCAM material of the same subject.

I found that the best results from HDV come when going directly to DVD, that looked really good.

Is it worth doing all this or should I just stick to SD if my ultimate product is SD?

Thanks.