Workflow Questions for FCP 6 - Offlining
 

Hello,

I'm hoping to get some expert insight on my best approach for a big project I'm about to begin editing. I have over 100 hours of footage for a video project that will end up as a 2-3 hour finished DVD (standard def). Most of my footage is SD (miniDV tapes), several are Hi-8, and about 20 tapes are HDV (both 60i and some 30p...shot on Canon XH-A1)...how's that for variety?

I did a project like this last year and everything went fine, but I didn't have any HDV footage in the mix. I offlined my captures and worked basic edits until I got the majority of the footage crunched to the final length, then re-captured at high res for final color, graphics, etc.

My first attempt at offlineRT HD capturing today of my HDV footage has me stumped. I'm capturing with my Canon XH-A1 via firewire to my Mac G5 and Final Cut Pro 6. I've selected the OfflineRT HD settings that seem appropriate (29.97) yet the footage is capturing at high-def and NOT the 384x216 it's supposed to be.

I'd like to make sure I get the best quality footage I can from this HDV footage even though the final output will be an SD DVD. I've heard and read that to do this I should capture in HDV, edit, then make an new SD sequence and move stuff over to that. But I'm also reading that my offlineRT solution may need to be downsampling to SD directly from my camera to FCP since the HD offlining doesn't seem to work.

Can someone please explain to me the best process to tackle this project with? Hope I gave enough info but let me know what I can answer to help me here. Thank you.