diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/HeaderKeys.cs b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/HeaderKeys.cs
index 25b4486624..e38abe18e5 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/HeaderKeys.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/HeaderKeys.cs
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.Common
 		public const string AUTHOR = "Author";
 		public const string RERECORDS = "rerecordCount";
 		public const string STARTSFROMSAVESTATE = "StartsFromSavestate";
+		public const string SAVESTATEBINARYBASE64BLOB = "SavestateBinaryBase64Blob"; //this string will not contain base64: ; it's implicit (this is to avoid another big string op to dice off the base64: substring)
 		public const string FOURSCORE = "FourScore";
 		public const string SHA1 = "SHA1";
 		public const string FIRMWARESHA1 = "FirmwareSHA1";
diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/IMovieHeader.cs b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/IMovieHeader.cs
index d0672d6459..62c4043dce 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/IMovieHeader.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/IMovieHeader.cs
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.Common
 
 		ulong Rerecords { get; set; }
 		bool StartsFromSavestate { get; set; }
+		string SavestateBinaryBase64Blob { get; set; }
 		string GameName { get; set; }
 		string SystemID { get; set; }
 
diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/Movie.cs b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/Movie.cs
index 6845a6a36d..096368fc43 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/Movie.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/Movie.cs
@@ -211,6 +211,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.Common
 
 		/// <summary>
 		/// Load Header information only for displaying file information in dialogs such as play movie
+		/// TODO - consider not loading the SavestateBinaryBase64Blob key?
 		/// </summary>
 		public bool PreLoadText(HawkFile hawkFile)
 		{
diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/MovieHeader.cs b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/MovieHeader.cs
index 4b744e56c4..c0fb905f76 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/MovieHeader.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.Common/movie/MovieHeader.cs
@@ -23,6 +23,18 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.Common
 		public Dictionary<string, string> BoardProperties { get; private set; }
 		public SubtitleList Subtitles { get; private set; }
 
+		public string SavestateBinaryBase64Blob
+		{
+			get {
+				if (ContainsKey(HeaderKeys.SAVESTATEBINARYBASE64BLOB)) return this[HeaderKeys.SAVESTATEBINARYBASE64BLOB];
+				else return null;
+			}
+			set {
+				if (value == null) Remove(HeaderKeys.SAVESTATEBINARYBASE64BLOB);
+				else Add(HeaderKeys.SAVESTATEBINARYBASE64BLOB, value);
+			}
+		}
+
 		public ulong Rerecords
 		{
 			get
diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/MainForm.Movie.cs b/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/MainForm.Movie.cs
index 274706083b..5fb2487cc1 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/MainForm.Movie.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/MainForm.Movie.cs
@@ -93,7 +93,8 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk
 
 			if (Global.MovieSession.Movie.Header.StartsFromSavestate)
 			{
-				LoadState(Global.MovieSession.Movie.Filename, Path.GetFileName(Global.MovieSession.Movie.Filename));
+				byte[] state = Convert.FromBase64String(Global.MovieSession.Movie.Header.SavestateBinaryBase64Blob);
+				Global.Emulator.LoadStateBinary(new BinaryReader(new MemoryStream(state)));
 				Global.Emulator.ResetCounters();
 			}
 
diff --git a/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/movie/RecordMovie.cs b/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/movie/RecordMovie.cs
index e96204afd8..3bad987585 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/movie/RecordMovie.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk/movie/RecordMovie.cs
@@ -81,23 +81,11 @@ namespace BizHawk.Client.EmuHawk
 					}
 
 					_movieToRecord = new Movie(path, startsFromSavestate: true);
-					var temppath = path;
-					var writer = new StreamWriter(temppath);
-					Global.Emulator.SaveStateText(writer);
-					writer.Close();
-
-					var file = new FileInfo(temppath);
-					using (var sr = file.OpenText())
-					{
-						string str;
-						while ((str = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
-						{
-							if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(str))
-							{
-								_movieToRecord.Header.Comments.Add(str);
-							}
-						}
-					}
+					//TODO - some emulators (c++ cores) are just returning a hex string already
+					//theres no sense hexifying those again. we need to record that fact in the IEmulator somehow
+					var bytestate = Global.Emulator.SaveStateBinary();
+					string stringstate = Convert.ToBase64String(bytestate);
+					_movieToRecord.Header.SavestateBinaryBase64Blob = stringstate;
 				}
 				else
 				{