Some very useful tips for shooting Video with your DSLR

With the arrival of my D7100, I have become more and more interested in how to shoot time-lapse and HD-Video.
I have been photographing all my life, and even if I did shoot and edit quite a few Hi-8 videos in the early nineties, digital video is an entirely new territory for me.
Clearly, DSLR video demands unlearning some of the things we routinely do shooting stills, while it also takes more preparation and precision at determining settings, because - unlike shooting stills in RAW - once a video is shot there are very few things you can do to improve the final output.

Moreover, a whole bunch of questions arise. For example, about what the difference is between progressive (p) and interlaced (i), what is the preferable resolution and frame-rate for a given subject, how to choose and control exposure, aperture, focus, depth of field, white balance and then some.
Although experimentation is always necessary to learn new skills, I still try to figure out the basics beforehand, so not to start off on completely the wrong foot and end up wasting precious time to get discouraging results.

Nikon recently published an interesting article on Nikon Cinema, which I found useful to begin to understand the essential concepts, difficulties involved and to arrive at some basic settings that will at least give me a 50/50 chance that my first video project will not be a total bummer.
In the article, Skyler Proctor, an Idaho Falls based director of photography has suggestions and tips on the following topics:
1. Settings
2. Resolution/Frame Rate
3. Frame Shutter Speed + Frame Rate
4. Manual Focus
5. Stabilization
6. Audio
Pointers: In The Field

Nikon Cinema: Produce Your Best Ever HD-SLR Video - 6 key areas to consider
Enjoy!