I am desperately trying to import HVD footage from a Sony HVR-A1 in OfflineRT mode in Final Cut Pro 5. I have a pretty slow Mac which does not allow me to work with native HDV or Apple intermediate codec and I WILL HAVE TO turn to PC if I do not find a quick solution… Argh…
I have tried the following :

1. OfflineRT HD esay setup specifying HDV as Capture setup and Sony HDV 1081i50 Firewire.
- It has worked once and not more after that
- The sequence is in JPG compressed mode but clips are all captured in full HDV, which makes it impossible to edit in RT… I have no idea of what is going on…

2. Offline RT (DV)
- Using i-link downconvert mode to capture in OfflineRT mode
- Everything seems OK until I finally try to batch capture in HDV. I then systematically get error messages and only a small part of the clips are captured.

3. HDV capture and transfer to OfflineRT HD via Media Manager (recompress)
- Everything works fine (capture, recompress and batch capture).
- BUT: it seems that recompress with OfflineRT HD suppose that the original is letterbox so that when the original (as mine) is 16:9, the compressed output is strongly distorted.
- I tried to use custom recompress procedures but they all seem to produce outputs which cannot be edited in RT…

It has been two weeks now and I did not start editing yet… What should I do? Turn to PC and Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0?