My goal is to create a pilot episode to pitch to broadcasters of outdoor networks. I have 70 hours of video shot in HDV 1080i and from the forums I've read, I'm thinking it's true that I should first capture downconverted DV25 into an NTSC 30i project for editting. (Please correct any of this that you think I should do differently....), then I'd decompose the final sequence and then change the project settings to HDV 1080i/59.94 and then Batch Capture the sequence to turn it into HDV.

Anyhow, for when I originally capture in DV25, do I set the Downconvert setting on my video camera to 'squeze' or 'letterbox' if my final outcome will be something for broadcast?

Thanks loads!!

 Completely up to you as you have options to letterbox later if you capture in the anamophic aspect.

I'd use squeeze. If you use letterbox then it will always playback letterboxed, even on a widescreen TV (and while you can change your widescreen settings to expand the picture, it's a manual setting). If set for squeeze then it's anamorphic, and as long as you burn a DVD with the 16x9 flag set, then it will be letterboxed when displayed on a 4x3 and widescreen when displayed on a 16x9.