HDV downconvert versus DV on Canon Vixia HV40

I shot using my Canon Vixia HV40 in DV, HDV and HDVp 30 on mini-HDV tape. The camera downconverted the HD footage using the firewire 800 to SD. I processed the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro (Sequence Settings: DV NTSC wide 48k, used in all tests) and upconverted on output to DVD disk to the setting for blu-ray 1920 rez. I played the footage on my big screen TV on a regular DVD and there was no visible difference between the standard DV and the HDV capture formats. The picture colour was slightly better with the HDV 30p.

Using Premiere Pro, I played with the 2 capture settings and tried the following:
Attempted HDV but it would not show up in the capture viewer. I read the manual and determined that the camera needs to be on Automatic HDV/DV or DV Locked in order to capture through firewire 800. Further reading on the internet suggested I would have to get a Black Magic HDMI card and go out through the HDMI port in order to get HDV so I let the camera donwconvert to standard def and selected Quicktime .mov for capture.

Quicktime
1. capture compression settings DV/DVCPRO-NTSC 60p, best, wide 45 second clip 1300 frames dropped
2. capture compression settings DVCPRO50 NTSC 60 p wide 45 second clip 1300 frames dropped
3. H.264 60 frames, best (no set frames or bitrate, no option for wide) 45 seconds 900 frames dropped…looks stretched upwards and 4:3.
4. MPEG-4, 60 frames, best (no frames or bitrate set, no option for wide) 45 seconds 1250 frames dropped…looks stretched upwards and 4:3.
5. No compressor, 60 frames, best 45 seconds 1100 frames dropped…looks stretched upwards and 4:3.
6. DV/DVCPRO-NTSC 29.97p, best, wide 45 second clip 0 frames dropped
Conclusion: Best for capturing footage DV/DVCPRO-NTSC 29.97p, best, wide 45 second clip 0 frames dropped
Overall conclusion: Not much difference between HDV converted to SD and regular SD. HDV P30 downconverted to SD had a nicer colour tone but the look of the pixel quality was the same.