Getting information from Hi8 videos

[The Master]

I used a program that allowed transmission of video down firewire plug about 5 years ago to capture very huge .AVI files at a resolution of 720x480 (from a modern camera from that year likely a sony)

But according to the wiki..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_video_format

Hi8 if it was hi8 video? Is at a resolution of 560x480 digitally?
If I were to take these files down from 720x480 to 560x480 would information be lost?

I do not know the name of the program I used.. I found it on here, through here.. it was a simple executable that created a dump of the data coming down.. I remember it said something about frames.. and with each dump I did I always lost like 1% of the frames or something..

Anyway, I was just wondering how I can tell what the resolution of these videos is because they play at 720x480 (which looks fine but lowering it would help on sizes and obviously not force a fake stretching)

These videos were shot from the year 1992 or so to the year 2001 or so on at least 3 different 8 mm (2 of the early ones were definitely Sony’s) tape camera's were used.. It's my understanding per the wiki that even if they were shot analog.. they have stereo sound and have PCM sound if hi8.. these dumps were done in the container .AVI 5 years ago

[JohnnyMalaria]

Keep it at 720 x 480. The figure of 560 x 480 in the wiki article is misleading. If you look at the article, it says Hi8 has a horizontal resolution of 420 lines. This refers to how much detail can be resolved. It has nothing to do with the frame size.

If you consider how a video frame is displayed, each line is scanned across the screen in a certain time (approx 64 microseconds). When this is digitized, it is sampled at certain fixed intervals. The industry standard is 720 samples per line. This is what gives the digitized frame its horizontal size. You could sample 640 times per line - which is another fairly common value.

Does that help?

[The Master]

Yah, I read a another online thread that the max Hi8 could do on a good day was 640x480.. so that's what I went with these videos are for streaming not DVD's..

I'm just a quality buff.. so I don't want to see file sizes at 10 mb at 320x240 or something.. I did try 560x480 but that came out looking weird.. I also learned that the videos even though they are 720x480 (sorta) are showing up in Mplayer as 720x540 (I guess a true 4:3)

I think I verified that the early 1992 ones have PCM stereo sound so it was Hi8