Since you are use V7e you can easily work in the HDV natively. It is a good idea to transcode to the Cineform intermediary if you are going to do several layers of compositing. Mpeg2 does not hold up well to compositing and the Cineform intermediary holds up very well. You do not need to buy the Cineform product to do this. If you are going to do several layers of compositing (I doubt you are at this point) you would simply place the HDV clips clips on the timeline and render them out as Cineform intermediaries. Vegas comes with a version of the CODEC for this purpose.

With your Canon A1 (a fun camera) you should have gotten good audio from the knee position. For folks who are reading this and are newer to this, remember to disable the automatic gain control on the audio. Manually set the audio levels for an interview (or any other time in my opinion). With an interview, the gain control will pulse up and down between statements and words adding background noise and hum.

Did you take any pictures of your set up?

BTW here is a fun look at setting up interviews that are a bit more complex than I think you were doing, but still offers some good tips. The video is easier to refer back to than getting your whole cinema class back together.

DJTV Interview Episode :thumbsup:

I am glad to be at PR although I am a video guy rather than still. I am here to help in anyway that I can.

KK