Help Aspect Ratios & Frame Rates

I was messing around with my Canon XH A1 and recorded DV 60i, the footage is not as colorful or as crisp as the regular DV 4:3 footage I captured. Is there anyway to convert it? What is 60i anyway?

And can any one offer a simple explanation for frame rates & aspect ratios, I'm so confused???
My camera offers 60i, 30F and 24F for 4:3, 16:9 and HD but as I am reading previous forums where people are talking about 24p, HD24, 30i and then throw in resolutions like 480, 720, 1080. I'm so lost, can someone help me?

stick to 60i(30i) and enjoy that very nice cam. the F modes are faked progressive and not going to get you much, except confused. canon's 24F "fakes" progressive scan by slightly offsetting the vertical readout of the green CCD from those of the blue and red, generating a frame with 1.5x the lines of the 540-line field, or 810 lines, albeit ones using spatial rather than temporal interlace.

Thank you edDV & minidv2dvd! I'm editing a project where I shot both standard DV and 60i, even in outdoor beautiful lighting my regular SD 4:3 29.97 looks crisper & brighter than the 60i but ... some of the 60i are really great shots I'd like to use. Would you guys know if I can covert 60i to 29.97?

I think edDV is correct

HDV is recorded in 1080/60i along with frame rates of 30F and 24F, with the “F” standing for “frame.”

DV video is recorded in 480/60i, and can also take advantage of the 30F and 24F frame rates

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-XH-A1-Camcorder-Review/Performance.htm#

60i is just the new name for 30i (people think bigger is better, so marketing follows). This is 29.97 interlaced frames per second. When you view interlaced video on an interlaced TV you see one field at a time so 29.97 frames becomes 59.94 fields -- each taken at a different point in time by the camera. This gives very fluid motion at the expense of flicker on interlaced TVs and deinterlacing artifacts on progressive TVs.

30F is 29.97 progressive frames per second encoded in interlaced mode. But both fields come from the same point in time. This is not as silky smooth as 30i. But it's useful if you plan to post web videos (no deinterlacing issues to deal with).

24F is a film like mode where the camera takes 23.976 exposures per second the performs a 3:2 pulldown to create 29.97 interlaced frames per second. Software can easily restore the original 24 fps frames. This is a little more jerky than 30F and much more jerky than 30i. But film people like the jerky look. There may also be some more flexibility here in terms of exposures 24 frames per second means you can have nearly 1/24 second exposures. So you may be able to work in slightly darker environments, get more motion blur, etc.

Cool thanks everyone for the crash course on framerates!
The xh a1 states on top right of LCD display the video format ('16:9', 'DV' or 'HD')
When it says 'DV' the footage I shot is beautiful!
When it says 'DV 60i' the footage looks like it is recorded from a cheap camcorder (useable but less vibrant and not as crisp)
Even though it was shot on same camera, same tape, outside (great lighting) it is sooooo noticable when I cut between the two different types.
Any suggestions to get my footage to look the same?

Thanks so much for spending so much time helping me!!!
Exactly DV is 60i but then why is the footage labelled DV so much better than the footage labelled DV 60i ... wierd! Check out my freeze frames as an example.

so the above is a frame of the footage labelled DV at the top right of my LCD screen on my XH A1
and the image below is a frame of the footage labelled DV 60i

Those are two very different shots. Cameras always have trouble with strong back lighting like in the second image. You should take the camera and shoot exactly the same scene in both modes. Then post snapshots.

The back light is a poor example, but really my 60i ftg is significantly drab. Both the freeze frames created jpgs that are grainy to show as an example.
I'm editing on imovie and final cut pro version 4.5, it isn't the preview or monitors because I did a test burn.
I'm sure this is a simple fix because when I view in my LCD screen the footage looks great when I import the footage quality is reduced.
I'm creating a DV NTSC project and the footage was all shot in SP mode.

I'm sorry I'm not able to post samples, even on crisp footage the freeze frame is a grainy image. I create freeze frame and save as jpeg but no dice.
I think your right, it is camera mode or something to do with the import. My GL2 reg DV is great, My XH A1 (which is the more expensive camera!) DV 60i is drab. It seems like it should be a simple fix, both DV footage should look somewhat the same.

Thanks for your help along the way edDV!

Is it possible the camcorder has different scene modes for each frame type? Maybe DV 60i is set to something different DV. If so, setting them both to the same scene mode should make them look alike.