Re: "Offline" ingesting XDCam media: possible?

First of all, many thanks to such speedy and detailed answers.

In the meantime, I have done some deep digging and found some tutorials and through them founds SONY's website's hidden plugins (I say hidden because things are spread across the different sites: http://www.pro.sony.com and http://www.servicesplus.sel.sony.com.
And within the sites, finding the right path to the right files was tricky and not tag-name-friendly, in my opinion. But by watching what the tutorial guy found (a tutorial here at creative cow, Tapeless Workflow in Final Cut 7), I was able to locate the drivers.

I found what I think what was missing, as now I have Log and Transfer XDCAM card capabilities.

Funny observation: when I try the preferences for that specific format (called MPEG2 Consumer Cameras), it only lets me choose Apple Pro Res. But then once things are ingested, they are actually XDCAM EX 1080p24 (35 Mb/s VBR)...?

For now, this is fine, as 1 hour takes up 16 GB, not too bad. But I was curious to know why I can't choose other even lighter options like Pro Res Proxy or Apple Intermediate Codec. And why is it not in fact Apple Pro Res 422 (although this would be too heavy for me now, it is curious that it didn't really ingest the way it said it would).

In short, thanks for all the input, it has guided me to what seems to be a better approach. But a few things still make me curious to know if I can do better / different.
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Question 2, if anyone wants to help further: if I edit and master in the XDCAM EX 1080p24 codec in which the ingested material came in as, am I working (and finishing) with less quality than I could have been?
Seems to me that the native codec is as best as it will get, unless I start addinf effects, etc, which I won't. I just want to know if by ingesting in this (native?) codec, I am editing at the native quality and therefore not loosing quality.

Many many thanks!!!