Hi all,

I've bought a ton of video editing and capture type applications lately trying to deal with countless home videos, and I've had pretty good luck with Ulead's application until I noticed one problem - it seems to clip the first 1/2 second to 1 second of video, which is absolutely unacceptable! So I've been redoing my HDV captures in Roxio's Creator 8 suite, and I've been wondering - is the capture lossless when you capture using EMC8? The Roxio web site doesn't mention this at all.

The strange thing is, when you use Cineform, HDV video takes up 50 GB per hour, but when you use anything else (Ulead, Roxio, whatever), it only seems to take about 12 GB per hour, even though both captures look the same (they *look* lossless to me). Anyone know why Cineform would take up almost 5 times as much space?

Also, anone know why analog 8mm video would take up 13 GB per hour, whereas HDV only takes 12 GB? Is this simply a result of analog video's inherent inefficiency? You'd think HDV would take more space, not less...

Anyway, thanks for any information, especially regarding whether or not Roxio's EMC8 captures *lossless* HDV. Roxio support staff, this means you.

Joel

The software has nothing to do with the comrpession. Capture via firewire is more like a file transfer - bit for bit. 8mm digital and MiniDV camcorders standard uses a codec that creates about 13gig/hr. This is in the camcorder and the bits get transferred via firewire. The software does nothing to the bits. Why Cineform captures a larger file is a bit puzzling. I assume you are using the same camcorder. Just different software? If your camcorder is really HiDef, then I would expect the files to be larger than 13gig/hr. Which camcorder do you have? Maybe it is using a higher compression so it can use the same tapes?

I have Ulead V8 and there is a registry tweak for tape preroll. Sorry don't recall what it is, but read through their forum. I was really frustrated with that, too.

BTW, there do make 8mm DIGITAL camcorders. I have one.