Chris,
Your test is interesting. I have never looked closely at the resulting file sizes. Where I find it frustrating is when I take one or two 5 second clips from an hour dump – if one has a velocity clip then the trimmed file is multiple gigs in size and the project – (even a 30 second spot) can’t be archived to a data DVD without work arounds.
I have submitted a request to Sony about this (a number of months ago)but have not heard a response.
Paul