what flavor hd,,, and how did it get into fcp, and/or what are they rendering to ? Need to find that out then you can figure out how and if you can edit in vegas

If you can get enough portable storage, I would say a good Quicktime codec is the Component Video one. I did test with most of those QT codecs and Component is one that always keeps accurate colors and doesn't mess up anything. I believe it is a lossless codec, but if it's not, you would be hard pressed to note the difference. Obviously that quality comes at a price, it takes up a lot of drive space, but it's worth it. I would compare it to Huffyuv on the Windows platform Obviously, you need to have Quicktime installed in the Windows PC to be able to open it, I don't think Vegas by itself could open it without QT installed.

If you haven't ponied up $30 for a copy of QuickTime Pro on your Vegas system, now is a good time.

QT Pro can read a lot of video files nothing else can, including extra audio tracks, subtitle tracks, etc., it can tell you what formats you have coming in, and it can do conversions quite well.

Many people think that QuickTime is the Apple equivalent of Microsoft's AVI.

This is correct only in the same sense that they are both wrappers. Beyond that, QT has vastly more practical capability.

Microsoft has worked very hard throughout the years to sabotage QT (like in the past when "the next update to Windows wasn't ready until [Excel-competitor] Lotus 1-2-3 didn't work"), but they have had enough pressure from working professionals that they had to back off a bit.

Couldn't work without it, absolutely useful for most every project involving Vegas and FCP.

I started to search this question and was pleased to see that it is a most recent question asked. However, I'm trying to do the opposite. I want to get my V6 edited project into FCP. I have read in the past to use AVI files but have not found that to work. Do I need to set any of the custom settings or should I try QT. In which case, I will have to "pony up $30".
There must be more then just getting a file the right format. Perhaps, how one burns it to the disc or -R vs. +R. Maybe it is how it is loaded into the computer. I found that loading files into the timeline seem to work where other times I have to copy files. Bottom line is: There is the right way and there is the wrong way, but there is the way that works. I just wish I know what works.

photoJPEG might be a good bet (at 100% quality). Manageable file size, good quality, fast decode, codec available on PC. (H.264 is not fast to encode or decode... don't use it.)

Make sure you add 2-pops to make sure audio is in sync.

With Quicktime, you always have to check that Quicktime isn't doing inappropriate color management (ICC profiles, 1.8 versus 2.2 gamma... ugh!). One way to check is for the other guy to export single frames of color bars and real footage to different formats and email them to you.
You might just want to eyeball the gamma and colors to see if they look correct.
You may need to pay attention to the color space stuff going on in Vegas. QT usually decodes to computer RGB levels (photoJPEG will), but the codec you are mastering to may expect studio RGB levels so the levels will be wrong (or it might expect computer RGB). So you need to figure it out. http://glennchan.info/articles/vegas/colorspaces/colorspaces.html

I didn't read the entire thread, but .mxf at 35Mbps works just fine. Same as XDCAM. You just need to be sure they download the XDCAM plug for FCP from the Sony.com/xdcam website. It's free.

More info...
The guy using final cut is being handed DV tapes from I believe a Canon HD camera. He was (is) being asked to import the tapes and create files on a disk drive to then hand to me for editing on a PC. Since I don't have a HD camera, the purpose of all this is to simply get me the HD files out of the camera so I can edit on a PC.

So what I'm after is what to tell the guy doing the tape processing with final cut, how to output the files so I can read them on a PC with Vegas. His first attempt providing me files that he told me were QT files but I could only hear the audio, the video was not recognized by Vegas or anything I tried on the PC. I'd also like to keep the quality as best as possible obviously too.

i think (not positive) fcp does some intermediate bs during capture of hdv,
may want to try the blackmagic codec on the files you already have ,available free on the blackmagic design website,,

Check out this video. It refers to an Apple utility called DVHSCAP that actually captures the m2t stream right from the tape. That's what you want. The guy in the video mentions that these can be played back on a Playstation so it sure sounds like Vegas would have no problem reading them. FCP will not capture m2t, as far as I can tell, it converts them into an intermediary, which is just so convoluted if you want to use them in Vegas. Don't go there if you can avoid it.

Thanks everyone. I'll try the DVHSCAP utility, sounds like a good method.

Thanks again for all the great ideas! I'll post what I end up using after working with the shop doing the Final Cut work.

Tom

Motion JPEG A at highest quality.