The first few weeks of using this camera has been great in some aspects but frustrating in others. All I'm trying to do is down convert my original HD footage to SD using the option in the menu, but as soon as I connect my firewire cable to the camcorder, the HD down conversion option isn't accessible any more as it gets blacked out, and on the main LCD screen HDV/DV IN appears? Can I not use firewire to down convert with this camcorder? I can't see any option to let me select HDV/DV OUT instead of IN.
I just want to see for myself how the in-camera down conversion turns out. Help???

Thanks.

Are you changing to downconvert before or after you plug in the firewire cable? You have to make the menu change before connecting the cable.

Switch off the camera, then disconnect firewire, then change menu and re-connect it to system. Worked for me.

Rajiv

Thanks guys, that's what it was. I had actually done those steps before but had never tried the actual capture, because after re-attaching the firewire, I'd go back into the menu and see that the downconvert option had been blacked out again. So I didn't realize that the setting change had actually taken affect.

Thanks again for your help as it's much appreciated.