Nikon d5000 optimized video settings?

For all of you Filmers who are using a nikon slr d5000 as their camera of choice, what are the video settings that you use to get the most out of your HD video. I just bought this camera but I'm really unaware of how to use it. I don't want the stupid answer of its all personal preference and blah blah blah I just need to know what settings you use to make your video as crisp and HD as possible.

There's no "best setting" because the recording environments change. Indoors, outdoors, poor lighting or good lighting… Fast action or talking head.

You're probably not going to like this response.

Be aware that a dSLR is designed to capture still images. Video capture is a "convenience feature".It is possible to capture great video, but under certain conditions. Read the manual. Pay attention to the "file size" limitations, record-time-to-overheat issues. The short version is that these two key items make the "best" conditions for short sequence clip capture similar to movie sequence captures. This is different form the way many camcorders are used when "point and shoot" capture lots of video and edit out what is not wanted.

Your first goals are to learn how the camcorder behaves. Start with everything in Auto mode. Capture some video. Pick ONE manual function and use it for a while. That might be white balance, focus, zoom, shutter… Whatever - but pick only ONE. Understand how it works and how to change it and what happens when you change it. Then pick the next… And incorporate its functions into the knowledge you gained with the first one…

This has nothing to do with "personal preference blah blah blah" and all to do with learning the behavior of the equipment under different conditions… Very similar to using the still image capture - the primary function of a dSLR - under different conditions. If high definition video is the primary reason for getting the D5000, you got the wrong equipment and likely should have gotten a camcorder which has a primary design feature of capturing video (and audio) and secondary "convenience feature" to capture stills.

And, at some point, you'll need to learn about audio - but that's a whole different animal.