Need an explanation on digital video

[Luis Neves]

I am relatively experienced with capturing and converting analog video (VHS and Hi8). I just bought a digital camcorder (Sony DCR-TRV25) and a firewire card to my computer. On my first test I have transferred to the computer 1 minute of footage, and, to my surprise, I did not get the usual big avi file, but just a small mpg2 file (31 Mb). The only thing I had to do to author with DVD Maestro was to split audio and video to two different files and that was all.

In these foruns it is common to see a reference that digital video avi files go up to more than 200 Mb/minute, and I thought that I would have to capture and convert to DVD mpg2 as I do with analog captures. So, my question: is the camara recording directly in mpg2 format or the conversion to mpg2 is carried only when transferring to the computer? Any change of getting the original uncompressed digital video?

[Tommyknocker]

What program did you use to capture the video? I do know that Sony'ss Pixela program converts your firewire DV to MPEG whether you want it to or not. I capture DV with Video Studio 6 instead.

[Luis Neves]

I used ShowBiz, which come with my Sony DVD burner together with MyDVD. I was not aware of the possibility of capturing software to carry out mpeg2 conversion in real time. Maybe this is the most likely explanation. Quality of the mpg2 file was quite good on the screen, I wonder if the nature of DV allows for quality real time encoding with a fast processor (I have a P IV at 2 Ghz), or is it better to capture uncompressed and go for CCE or TmpGEnc to encode later?

[Luis Neves]

Ok, it was really Showbizz. I have tryed with Scenalizer and this time I got the expected huge file.