Downconverting HDV

[Gisela Richter]

As I don't yet have an HDTV I downconvert to SD. A recent test I did may interest other members:
I shot the same scene with my old SD camcorder and with my new Canon HV20 in HDV. This I downconverted in the camcorder and made an AVI file. I then made an HDV file from the original clip. The capture of the HDV clip in HDV did not look too good (jerky), but I went ahead and made a file. So I had three files which I burned to a DVD:
1. The SD file
2. The camcorder converted file (SD)
3. The HDV file
On my SDTV file 1 was OK, file 2 was better, particularly the color rendering, but file 3 was by far the best.
Conclusion: I will no longer let the camcorder downconvert. I make an HDV file and hand it over to TMPGenc DVD author to convert and burn. I prefer TMPG because you have more options, but the result may well be the same with Ulead.