Recording in HD <-> down to SD?

Hi all,

I had posted an earlier query, but forgot to ask this.....

At the moment I am shooting on a Panasonic HDC Z10000 Full HD Cam.
The bulk of my final products are burnt in SD DVD discs. I am just not sure what I am doing is correct to get the HD down to SD.
Here is what I am doing.....

(1) Shoot with the camera set to 1920x1080p / 25fps (PAL).
(2) Plug in the media card to my mac, boot up FCPX
(2) setup new project with the exact same settings of the camera (full HD).
(3) After finishing editing, I would normally 'send to Compressor', but for some reason I am getting an error like, "Media drive not ready", and it stops there after a long time trying. So I have a work around where I Share to Master File (QT), then place that on to Compressor.
(4) While in Compressor I Choose the standard settings for SD-PAL video. That is 720x576 @ 24fps. I also choose Dolby Digital Stereo standard for the audio stream.
(5) I then import into DVD-SP. Perform a complete author with chapters / markers / effects, then build and format from within DVD-SP. That of course builds and writes a final DVD.

What I can see is just a tad bit of blocky video here and there (not that much, but is present).
And I created buttons within DVD-SP, and the text titles that I created for those buttons appear very jaggy - not smooth and hi-res. Yet I was sure my previous dvd's were better than that....
The last thing, and the most import is I am having trouble with the Aspect Ratio, and what to set it to. When I set each element in DVD-SP to display in 16:9, the final DVD widens the picture further to cause more obvious 'Bit mapping'.
When I choose the elements to be displayed in SD, they do in fact appear in SD on the TV, and I have to tell the clients to set their aspect rations to 4:3 FULL or a Level of zoom. Not very professional, would be great to just give them a DVD that works out of the box (so to speak :).

Am I doing things correct?, or there might be a better way.......

Any suggestions would be very much welcome!.

Thanks to all who can reply....

Pete.

Hi Pete,

You are recording 1920x1080 square pixel ratio. The aspect ratio in DVDSP should match your recording.

The standard settings for widescreen SD PAL video is 1024 x 576 square pixels @ 25fps. Not 720x576@24fps.

This will solve most of your issues.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Ronny,

As always nice to hear from you. And thanks for the reply.

That might explain a few things.

I had a gander in Compressor, and from what I see I can set up a custom export, with the only adjustable setting I can see being <SD>, and the aspect ratio to <16:9> and of course <PAL>
Cannot find anywhere to enter the actual X x Y pixel settings. So that might do the trick?

Shall give it a go!.

Gee, thanks so much.

Regards,

Pete