Project settings have to be alligned with the original footage - to get the best perfromance for the preview. In your case, "HDV 1080 50i" (since you are in the PAL area).

The target format is defined by the rendering settings.

For your specific wish - downscaling from HDV to SD - make sure, that you have unter "deinterlaced" in the project settings "blend" or "interpolate" (even if you should not deinterlace - that is for internal calculaton reasons only).

So the project settings reflect the footage used, not the target format?

But, using HDV 1080 50i I get the wide 16:9 preview but how can I then control what is seen on a 4:3 standard screen if I want to use my HDV footage to zoom or pan in a 4:3 DV format?

And what to do when you mix footage of various formats?

>For your specific wish - downscaling from HDV to SD - make sure, that you have unter "deinterlaced" in the project settings "blend" or "interpolate" (even if you should not deinterlace - that is for internal calculaton reasons only).

Is this only valid when I have 50i footage or also for 25p footage?

Actually, the project settings have very little bearing on anything and can be set to whatever you want them to be. I tend to set them to match the desired output format so that i can see what the output is going to be like while i'm editing. As was pointed out earlier though, your preview performance can suffer this way. On the other hand, most cropping, track motion, and generated media settings are based project settings. If you make all these choices while the project settings match the source, then they may not be appropriate or fit the final output well. You might find yourself having to readjust them all before rendering. If you set the project properties to match the output first, then you'll avoid this issue.

I suppose you could set properties to match the output while setting up the project and creating the generated media, then switch to match the source while previewing.

OK, and you do no "magic" when rendering, like many FCP users seems to do, render to intermediate formats, then re-render or whatever they do?...

I thought it would be best to put the project settings to the output format - just as you would in any other program like DVDA, Word, InDesign etc. Seemed unlogical not to, but best to ask the pros. first!

One thing struck me as odd.
-- I set the project to DV
-- Imported HDV 1080 footage
-- Used the pan-crop to open that window
-- Checked "keep ration" in the left margin
-- Selected "match output ratio" (the frame transforms to something that looks like 4:3)
-- Typed 720 in the width on the crop frame (was 1440) but the height did not become 576 as expected, much less, some 540 IIRC.

Howcome?

Now, 720/576 is 5:4 - how can they "call" that 4:3 - I'm puzzled.

(PS: I live in PAL land)

Typically, we never recommend to set the project settings to the output format. The loss in preview capabilities can be dramatically, depending on the footage and the pc-performance. However, give that a try, you cannot do something wrong - change the setting and check the preview performance on your specific pc, using your specific footage.

You can also combine the approaches - first set the setting to your original footage to have better prieview capabilities, then change it to your SD format and adjust things like pan/crop, titels and so on.

If you use intermediate codecs - Vegas installs the Cineform Intermediate codec in the system, will depend again on your footage, but also on the question how many render steps you need for your specific workflow. If you edit an HDV project, you can do so by importing the m2t files to the timeline - as long as you render the material directly from the timeline to your final format (so, 1 or 2 render generations are fine - but if you need more, e.g. by rendering out, import into another too, render again, import to Vegas, render again - then intermediate codecs have a clear advantage).

If you wish, it is also possible to render out the materail in 16:9 - so a widescreen format. Depends, what you wish to have - if you wish to present the material on a 16:9 HDTV, or on a 4:3 TV.

..."Now, 720/576 is 5:4 - how can they "call" that 4:3 - I'm puzzled"

Because the displayed video format includes a scaling factor which is ~4:3

The pixel height and width is not the same thing. e.g. PAL 4:3 and PAL 16:9 both use 720 x 576 but are scaled differently.

Andrew