You want to know how it went??? Look at this thread!!!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=62245

I must just tell you that what I found interesting is that Vegas checks to see whether or not your device is compliant with the template that you are trying to use prior to printing to tape and what was surprising is that Vegas would check the FX1 and then allow me to print to tape using 'Interlaced, Upper Field First', 'Interlaced, Bottom Field First', or 'Progressive Scan'.

I have not had time to ouput the footage from this tape to a television monitor to see whether or not in actual fact the FX1 accepted / rejected the 'Interlaced, Upper Field First' or 'Progressive Scan' renders / print (it is on the tape though and looks fine on the LCD) but I will get to this and post the results.

This could be important as (if it actually worked) it means that you could actually store progressive scan material on a MiniDV Tape (using the FX1 as a recorder) for transfer etc. etc.

Anyway - the above did not have anything to do with the problem that I had - the 'Print to Tape' session that will used was just standard PAL DV - Interlaced, Bottom Field First.

Regards,

Dale.

Ok, I say shoot in HDV unless the station is really wanting a 4:3 format.

I shoot in HDV format only. I figure HD will be coming soon and when the stations do broadcast in HD, they will require shots in the 16:9 format.

In the meantime, you can convert the HD clip of 16:9 to 4:3 in an editing program. The cameraman at my tv station, that I volunteer for, uses Adobe Priemiere to pan and zoom in to 4:3 format. With the High Definition format, blowing up the picture to 4:3 format should cause minimal compression issues, as long as it's in Standard DV format. The picture should still look like broadcast quality.

I'm not a pro and use Vegas Movie Platnum to do some home videos and have tried the pan and zoom feature of Vegas to do exactly that. It seems to work nicely.

The station's only done the conversion to 4:3 format once, as far as I know, when they used a clip of the 12Th man gathering at Qwest Fields after the SeaHawks lost the big game. We all know Seahawks should have won that game. :) Please no razzing or debate about football. I'm not a fan, I just shot the video.

The stations used the 16:9 format and just broadcasted it as a letterbox format for 4:3 broadcasts for all my other clips.

And I wouldn't worry too much about conversion. If you send them the clip in Mini DV tape or DVD, they should be able to convert it themselves. I would guess most stations have a mini DV deck for use. Most stations are using the prosumer camcorders that uses the miniDV decks. It shouldn't be a problem. As for DVD, MTV asked our station if they wanted the clip requested from them to be sent as a BETA-SP or DVD format. MTV sent the clip in BETA-SP but the station told them it can handle either formats.