[MacDV] DVD-R as archive?

[Steven Rogers]

On Wednesday, November 19, 2003, at 11:55 AM, David Cole wrote:

> I've got LOTS of home movies on VHS, VHS-C, and mini-DV. I'm looking 
> to one day edit them together and burn DVD's for my kids and 
> grandkids. But for now...
>
> Would archiving them to mini-DV be the 1st choice of this list?
> Or digitizing them to hard drives (Final Cut or iMovie?) be the move, 
> prepping them for later editing?
> Or how about burning them to DVD-R with a dedicated DVD-R recorder?

None of these really create an "archive" in the sense of something that 
is less susceptible to deterioration than the common storage method. It 
mostly comes down to what's convenient for you. DV tape is the only 
practical way to preserve video with full quality. Its not permanent.

The big advantage of putting them on DVD-R is that people can actually 
watch them, and watch them many times without deteriorating the 
originals. I put about 4 hours of our family home movies on DVD-R and 
its probably the first time that many of those films were seen by 
people outside the immediate family. In 50 years, the DVD-Rs and film 
may be all gone, but at least we've seen them, and my kids have seen 
them.

Truly archiving video media is a real problem that hasn't been solved. 
*Most* of the world's movies have been lost because the media has 
always been volatile. Technology is making this constantly better, but 
hasn't really solved the problem yet.

SR