dont quite understand the question?
Do you get to tell the TV station what format you want the footage delivered in? I would think you would not get to chose that.. ???
You want something that is of high quality that fits in with your workflow. If you only have a miniDV deck to ingest footage, then receiving a DVCPRO tape is going to be of no use to you, even though it's a better format.
For best results, HDCAM SR is the way to go, but you'll probably have to pay to dub it to computer for use in your edit.
Can the TV station not provide you with a file? If they can, then that makes it a bit easier to get higher quality footage but even then it's mostly dependent on your own needs and workflow, and isn't really a question any of us can answer - a ProRes file is potentially less useful than a DNxHD file if you're editing with Avid, or on Windows, for example.
If a digital version is possible would it be the same quality as HDCAM SR or would some kind of compression be inevitable?
In terms of my requirements I really just want the highest quality I can get.
Yes, apparently the station want me to stipulate the format: "2. Dubbing format required for your production/use."
Interesting but rather bizarre advice. Sorry Jax, I don't know why you are talking about footage, video codecs and video quality...
For those who don't know, "dubbing" is the act of re-recording audio. In the UK, the TV industry uses the term "dubbing mixer" instead of the American term "re-recording mixer".