[Neal]

I captured with the easy set up HDV 1080i60 on my regular LaCie firewire400/800 drive and after editing and rendering, it played smoothly on the time line.

The problem focuses on exporting it to tape. It even comes out smoothly on tape, however the 16:9 picture appears about 3/4 the size of the original in the viewfinder with a black border all the way around, not the size the original was when shot.

That is the mystery. It could be the computer is too slow (ImacG5 Intel dual 2.1) but playback is not a problem, only exporting so it looks like the original tape picture.

Jerry mentioned hardware needs. Any guesses.
Thanks