Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn

The distinction that you are making is irrelevant for the end user. Obviously, for web distribution one has to compress the video files to something manageable like a WMV or Quicktime file. BUT, if you film it with a HDV or HD camera in 16 x 9 and light it very well (most importantly), the perceived quality is very much higher than a 4x3 standard WMV or Qucktime video file that was shot with a standard DV camera.

That's why it makes sense for sites to advertise as shot on HD or HD quality or however the sites are wording it on their tour. Because the encoded video files that the end users will be watching are normally much higher quality than a standard def video if they were shot correctly.