VHS mistakenly capturing in 16x9 via DV camcorder

[bodobodo]

I'm having a strange problem with capturing one videotape. For some reason when it is being captured by fireware passthrough via my Sony DV camcorder (model DCR-TRV330) it seems to be getting converted into 16x9 mode. When I look at it in WinDV which is my firewire capture application it looks normal. It also looks normal through the B&W viewfinder on the camcorder. However, when I look at it on the color pop-out screen on the camcorder it appears as if it is 16x9. In addition when I import the captured DV .avi file into Pinnacle Studio 9 it marks is at 16x9. There is an option to check which tells it to treat the file as 4x3 instead and that seems to correct the distortion but when I go to create an edited version of the file it takes much longer than usual giving me the impression that it's rerendering the entire output file from 16x9 to 4x3 so I worry that there's some degredation there which I would rather avoid. I would like it to capture properly from the beginning.

Does anyone know why a camcorder might distort what should be a 4x3 original analog tape? When played onto my TV via either of my VCRs the videotape comes out as normal 4x3 but no matter which VCR is used as the source it captures as 16x9 on my camcorder. Strangely for a split second when the tape starts playing and also as its fast forwarding the viewscreen on the camcorder shows it as 16x9 but as soon as it goes back to normal play it reverts to 16x9. None of the other 15 or so tapes that I have captured has displayed this sort of behaviour. Any suggestions? Although my camcorder has a 16x9 mode I have never used it and I've verified many times that this feature is currently off.

As an alternative assuming that it insists on capturing in 16x9 mode is there any quick patch that can be applied to an .avi file to simply have it read as 4x3 instead or must the whole file be rerendered by whatever NLE program is used?

[flaninacupboard]

bit of a weird one. have you tried using another capture app, such as DVapp or DVIO to see if you have the same problem?