Ive been having some trouble with after effects and the comp settings. Ive been shooting footage with the cannon a1 in dv mode, 24f 16:9. Im trying to do some color correction, but when i import the footage into after effects, and put it in a comp it looks like its in the wrong aspect ratio, the picture looks pixated and it says its running at 29.97, instead of 23.976. whats going on? can i fix this ?

Thanks

In the "Project" window, right click the file, choose "Interpret Footage", "Main" and make sure AE imported it correctly.

In the "Composition" window click the "Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction" button.

The toggle pixel aspect button worked perfectly, but when i told ae to interpret the footage as 24.976, the footage got even more liney

If the footage really is 24f it must be interpreted wrong.
These interlace artifacts on progressive footage can be caused by an attempted pulldown removal.
Make sure "Separate Fields" in the "Interpret Footage", "Main" dialog is set to "Off".

The seperate fields is set to off- but im still geting the the same thing

I never shoot SD anymore and it has been a while since I opened up After Effects, so I hope I'm not getting this wrong.

But I think that in SD (miniDV) the XH cameras only record 24F with pulldown. So your file is actually 60i using either 2:3 or 2:3:3:2 (whichever you've chosen in the camera's menu). So you should be able to get rid of the interlace artifact by conforming to 23.976 as you've done and then either letting AE guess the pulldown, or telling it in that same dialog which pulldown to use.

ah! thank you so much it works perfectly now