Capturing from minidv tape is insanely huge file

[AKA009]

I've captured two minDV tapes so far with 28 more to go of our home movies from the last 10yrs or so.

However i'm obvoiusly doing something wrong for them to be so large. A 90minute tape is taking up 106gb of space on my computer.

I'm on Vista Ultimate x64 using a Sony DCR-HC21.

I used Nero Vision to capture and I chose the capturing template AVI, which below shows the video and audo compressor as: No Compression.

Should I be choosing DV Type-2 instead? It gives option for Type 1 too, but I wanted to capture in the best quality onto hard drive first and work with minor editing before compressing them into something smaller. Minor editing as in only cutting and splicing.

Right now i'm trying to find another program to capture the tapes to see if they make such a large file too.

[guns1inger]

You should be transferring the files as DV AVI, which is 13Gb/Hr and is the exact same quality as what you have on the tape.

I have said it before, and I will continue to say it - NERO HAS NO PLACE IN A VIDEO WORKFLOW, EVER.

Even Windows Movie Maker can transfer DV AVI footage without re-encoding and producing stupidly large files.

I don't know if WinDV works under Vista X64. If it does, that would be the best tool to use.

[AKA009]

Thank you for the quick reply.

Only happened to use Nero because I had it installed already and haven't figured out how to use VirtualDub to capture and still have onscreen display to control fast forward etc without using camcorder.

I also chose the AVI setting as uncompressed because it also said it would be transferring it in the same quality as it is on the tape but didn't say that about DV AVI.

Will try WinDV and see how it does and reply back.

[guns1inger]

DV capture should be a data transfer process. Just taking the data from tape and putting it in an AVI container on your system

[AKA009]

WinDV works just fine on my Vista x64. It also is now a much more managable file size of 20gb for my 90 minute home videos.

Though it does make me curious as to why Nero even has an option for AVI No Compression that makes the file 106gb for 90minutes worth.

guns1inger thank you for your assistance, I really appreciate it.

[jagabo]

"no compression" means it decompresses the DV video that is coming from the camcorder and saves it as uncompressed YUY2.