I just did my first HDV to SD 24p in an mpeg to mpeg render. The quality is really amazing. I was comparing screen grabs of my 24p render to screen grabs off various movies using PowerDVD. I also compared some screen grabs to grabs from some downloaded DVX100A and XL2 video.

I must say, to my eyes, the 60i HDV footage rendered to 24p looks as good as native 24p SD. I see more clarity than I do in stretch mode DVX100A footage, and as much detail as in the XL2 footage. The captures look far sharper than frames from my VX2000 footage.