[Bruceo2]

[Doug Graham] “I’m just starting to play around with HDV…is this sort of behavior normal? System is AMD 4800+ dual core, ASUS A8N-SLI premium, 2 GB RAM, 1TB RAID 0 in 4 SATA drives.”

Yes, welcome to the world of HDV sucks! I love it, but it sucks.

[Doug Graham] “With the software set to either “convert on the fly” or “save the M2T and convert on the fly”, about 3 to 6 minutes of material would be captured, then the software would stop the camcorder while the conversion process caught up.”

If your system specs are as you say they are then it is mot likely you have some process running that causes cineform to blip and stop. I know for a fact if there is any usb bus activity (except if you are capturing to USB external) cineform will stop the capture. Cineform has improved greatly and is what I find to be the best option right now with Vegas, but it is still a PITA capture app. Buggy as hell. Often you will find your captures audio will go out of synch for no apparent reason and if you recapture the same tape the audio will still go out of synch. Doesn’t happen as often as it used to but still too often. I have found the best thing to do is do a msconfig and do a selective startup with load startup items unchecked.

[Doug Graham] “Conversion of the M2T to intermediate format took a little longer than real time, about 1 hr 15 min. for a 58 minute clip.”

That is exactly right. When I capture I set my timer for 1:15. Don’t even bother with other workflow methods they all suck. Cineform is still a PITA , but it is the best right now and they have consistently improved it, so I am hoping it will eventually work as advertised without bugs.