[MacDV] Re: Burn Ad Infinitum or For Nuttin'

[Erica Sadun]

>Erica, goddess of DV, had this come from anyone but you I'd not have
>bothered to respond. A little dismissive, dontcha think? I use DVD for the
>same reasons lots of people do: longevity (we hope), menus, chapters, and
>what is supposed to be the fun of burning our own DVDs. In this case, the
>primary concern was longevity.These videotapes were 17 years old. BTW -
>they DO play just fine, in any VHS player I choose. I suppose I could try
>the Sadun System and just dub to a new VHS every 17 years ;-)  I will check
>out the site you privided.
>
>Thank you both for replying. Since you two are clearly having such superb
>results, it may be a problem with my Superdrive, perhaps an intermittent.
>
>Thanks to all for your comments and concern, esp. sb.
>
>Bobbo

I'm surprised you haven't heard my standard rant on this issue.
It's not like I've been shy with my opinions.

1. DVDs are not archival for data. MPEG compression means you
unrecoverably lose quality unless you compress at an absurdly
high bitrate.

2. DVDRs are not archival physically. Recordable DVD media
include organic inks and laminated plastics that have been shown
to fail at unacceptably high rates.

3. Recordable DVDs do not play back in all players. In current
machines, you can expect a 5-10% fail rate. In older machines,
the fail rate is much higher.

4. The high data rate used with Recordable DVDs (It's the
software's fault generally, not the media) makes them unsuitable
for playback in many computers, particularly those more than
a couple of years old.

5. VHS *works*. Most people in the US and Europe
have or have access to a VHS player.

6. If you want to save your video for archival purposes,
use a digital tape format, such as DV. This eliminates
generation effects once you finish digitizing and provides
better archival storage.

Hope this clarifies. -- Erica