DVHSCap creating files that are too long

[malacca73]

Hi, if this has been covered somewhere, I apologize, and I'd appreciate it if someone could just kindly direct me to the answer. But if not, here's my problem. I am using DVHSCap to capture 1080/60i footage from from a one hour HDV tape. Captures fine, no Overruns or anything. When I look at the resulting .m2t file, though, it is an hour and 27 minutes long, instead of an hour. Huh?

What appears to happen is that the video freezes at some point during playback, while the audio continues along. Then when the audio finishes, the video starts to play again, resulting in a longer file. Or at least that's what appears to be happening - the .m2t files play back so poorly, it could just be a ridiculous amount of lag that I'm misinterpreting as a video freeze. MPEGStreamclip, VLC Player, and Toast all think the file is an hour and 27 minutes, but when I use the ClipWrap program I use to 'rewrap' the .m2t files so Quicktime and FCP can work with them, they magically become the right length, and there are no syncing problems with the audio and video.

Toast isn't terribly fond of the 'wrapped' files and produces progressive-looking Blu-ray discs, while I'm looking for a disc that looks like 60i, as the footage was shot.

I've been looking all over for an answer to what might be causing this, and I can't find anything, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[edDV]

On a Windows PC this could easily be done with HDVsplit. Is there a reason you want the native HDV m2t file? I've never attempted HDV capture with CapDVHS.

Have you tried iMovie or or FCE/FCP for HDV dcapture? They convert the HDV stream to the Apple Intermediate Codec which could be passed to Toast as I recall. I don't have Toast here.

[malacca73]

iMovie captures don't seem to retain the 60i look for some reason when the footage is converted to AIC. The raw .m2t files do, of course, which is why it would be easy to use them if they would just be the right length.

I'm capturing using FCE right now, and the resulting files seem to be right. We'll see what happens when I make a Blu-ray with them.

Toast is supposed to allow me to just plug in my camcorder and import footage, but it won't recognize my Canon HV30 for some reason.

While FCE could be a solution, it would be nice to be able to skip the whole AIC conversion and subsequent export from FCE by just using the .m2t files if DVHSCap would just behave.

[edDV]

iMovie captures don't seem to retain the 60i look for some reason when the footage is converted to AIC. The raw .m2t files do, of course, which is why it would be easy to use them if they would just be the right length.

I'm capturing using FCE right now, and the resulting files seem to be right. We'll see what happens when I make a Blu-ray with them.

Toast is supposed to allow me to just plug in my camcorder and import footage, but it won't recognize my Canon HV30 for some reason.

While FCE could be a solution, it would be nice to be able to skip the whole AIC conversion and subsequent export from FCE by just using the .m2t files if DVHSCap would just behave.

I think the problem you are seeing with iMovie is not AIC but the way HDV plays preview on the computer monitor. This assumes you did set the project for 1920x1080i, not 960x540p. You need to do a test DVD to see the true result (without deinterlace).

All Apple products including FCE force a conversion to AIC unless you set up a full uncompressed project in FCP.

Premiere Pro and most Windows edit programs edit 1440x1080i HDV naively. Vegas even smart renders 1080i HDV.

You may want to ask this in the Mac forum here to get a broader response.