Prores or DNXHD works fine for me.
Steer clear of AIC if he suggests it though, no good for Windows at all.

duh, never thought it would be THAT simple the other way around ;-)

so, if he captures natively, i should get the original hdv m2t in a .mov wrapper?

When I use Mac I have to rewrap the m2t files with Clipwrap to give me the m2t in a mov wrapper for use in FCX.
It will not take the m2t natively unless played from cam and captured. ( which I have never done).

"so, if he captures natively, i should get the original hdv m2t in a .mov wrapper?"

Maybe, maybe not, may be Prores. Will work either way though.

apparently he's capturing via firewire and fcp doesn't give him any capture options....

> "apparently he's capturing via firewire and fcp doesn't give him any capture options...."

That's because firewire is not a "capture" it's a bit-for-bit "copy" of what's on the tape.

Tell him to use Apple Compressor to convert them to ProRes for you. If he gives you the files that he natively captures, Vegas Pro will not be able to open them because Vegas is not expecting HDV in a QuickTime MOV wrapper. He's needs to give you something Vegas Pro can open unless you can find software for Windows that convert HDV QuickTime files to HDV MPEG2 Transport Stream files (M2T).

~jr

A big +1 to what jr said. I'm working with a guy who uses FCP at home and he tried to give me some raw footage that came from an HDV camera. He neglected to mention that these were not the raw files but ones that he had captured using FCP. Needless to say Vegas had no idea what they were :(

Mike

i dropped a sample fie he sent me onto the time line, with matched properties, and vegas read/played it, but it was squeezed 4:3?

i have cs6 encoder, maybe i'll give it a rinse through that?

did so using xdcamhd 25/25p and it looks / plays fine on the tl. since this is going to the net is there any point in my using 25/50i?

i dropped a sample fie he sent me onto the time line, with matched properties, and vegas read/played it, but it was squeezed 4:3?

The file is probably 1440x1080 anamorphic and Vegas doesn't recognize the PAR info in the quicktime wrapper. In the Media window you can select all of those files, right-click and select properties, then change the PAR. Newest versions of Vegas will change the PAR for ALL the files you selected rather than just the one that received the click.

No need to rinse.

Rob