DVD footage good for broadcasting !!?? Help !

We are shooting a documentary in Colombia using PAL equipment. A local TV has given us a bunch of vital archive footage in DVD format. These material was shot with NTSC, 3CCDs, cameras on MiniDVs and Hi8- and later transferred to DVD via firewire.

Now we have a dilemma.

Will it be a problem to copy these footage onto MiniDVs, capture it and then do the editing in FCP in the same timeline with our PAL material ?

And, most important: Is there any loss of quality when going from MiniDV to DVD and back to MiniDV via firewire !?

The final product has to be of broadcast quality. Potentially we have the option to acquire MiniDvs copies of these material. However this would notably increase production costs, so we hope we can use the DVDs.

Any advice would be greatly, greatly appreciated !!

Best regards

Riccardo

Dr Riccardo Vitale
Anthropologist/Filmmaker