HDV guide for idiots....and me! Basic questions, I need your help!

Question

Hello,
in my hand, I'm holding my first HDV tape. I've never edited HDV before, and before I continue and make all kinds of silly mistakes that make me loose even more sleep, I thought I'd post some questions on this forum:
But first things first:
I am working on a QuadG5, 4.5GB RAM, fibre-channel RAID, FCP 5.0.4, OS10.4.5, Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme, Sony HDV-Deck HVR-M10E, and I live in PAL land.
Thanks to Chris Jarvis' answer in a different post, I managed to set my deck properly, so that I can now capture HDV to FCP without a problem. So if you read this, Chris, thanks a bunch! However, I was wondering if it is possible to capture the footage to a different codec. So, here we go....
1) For example, could I downconvert it to DV and capture it via Firewire?
2) Could I capture HDV via component to my Multibridge as uncompressed 8bit material? I will have to mix this footage with footage captured from BetaSP etc., so wouldn't it make sense to convert it during capture already, thereby avoiding rendering later on?
3) Is it possible to monitor HDV on an SD monitor? When I use my Blackmagic video out and set it to 8bit/10bit, anything really, I only get an image when I pause play. Am I right to assume that I would need an HD monitor to properly monitor what I am doing?
4) I dimly remember people having trouble getting HDV stuff to DVD. Have others experienced that, too? Would I, once again, be better off capturing the whole shebang uncompressed from the start?
Hm, that's all for the time being. I hope some of you can give me some answers, I'd really appreciate it a lot. And if I annoyed you because I was asking the same questions that everybody tends to ask about HDV, please forgive me, I did look through several posts on this forum, but thought it'd be nice to gather all the answers here.
Yup.
Cheers and thanks,
Colin
PowerMac G5 2.5GHz DP and PowerMac G4 500MHz DP    

Answer 1

Hi Jerry,
and thanks for your reply. Yes, in the end it will go out on a SD DVD. I did down-convert the footage to DV, since I got more DV stuff over the last couple of days. I'm glad about my decision, because I did a couple of test edits in HDV, and while it looks great, I must admit that it is a bit of a pain to work with. And not being able to monitor what I'm doing just doesn't do it for me.
Thanks once more and have a nice weekend,
Colin