[MacDV] An Interesting Point. What To Do About Archives

[Richard Brown]

Tape, such as AIT and DLT media, has some manufacturers boasting data 
integrity/archival capability. These can store, very slowly, large 
amounts of data, but are a bit pricey per GB. Additionally, the tape 
drives will set you back $1,000 or more. Those authoring commercial 
DVDs usually have to have a DLT tape drive (LaCie is about as 
affordable as the come on the Mac.)

Tape, as in DV, or better, DVCAM,  is not a bad idea at all. Keep your 
camera tapes, and offline your finished edits onto DV, and STORE THEM 
WELL (cool, dry, free from over-handling, and away from magnetic 
fields.) Disney, for example, is archiving its massive library of Beta 
SP (they OWN ABC, as it happens) onto DVCAM even as I type. So, big 
corporations like this idea. It is digital, CHEAP, and takes little 
storage space, even with the big 184 minute DVCAM tapes.

DVD has the problem of low capacity, and by virtue of unproven 
chemistry, questionable archival characteristics. A central issue for 
DVD-R _or_ CDR recordable media relative to ATTEMPTING archiving is 
recording speed. This sort of media, recorded SLOWLY (1x-2x) will be 
VASTLY more stable and archival than the same media recorded at 48x. 
The laser etches at the same power at all speeds. Higher 
photosensitivity of the "certified" media (e.g. 52x) only means the 
media will be able to respond to fast burning, NOT that the burn itself 
will bear archival resemblance to a slower, therefor more deeply etched 
burn. It's all about the integrity of the pits versus the changing 
chemical nature within the substrate. Trusting ever shallower pits 
through faster and faster burn speeds equals lunacy. Our slowly burned 
CDR archives from way back when the FASTEST burners were 2x (and buffer 
underrun protection did not exitst) remain useable a DECADE after the 
burn. I've watched reports on the former TechTV that CDR's have 2-3 
year lifespans, but in the same breath, they would also advocate 600x 
burn speeds due the need for advertiser appeasement.

Hard Drives are dropping in price, and getting bigger all the time. If 
they die, there are many resources available to reclaim your data. This 
is not true of tape, nor of CD/DVD media. The problem with using hard 
drives as archive devices is it dictates that the drive will only be 
used for such archiving on a recurring, as need basis. This equals 
many, many hard drive boot up, shut down cycles. Drive manufacturers 
will tell you this cycle is the MAIN wear and tear on a drive, thus to 
archive in this fashion is to shorten the life of the drive. It's a 
Catch-22, but with a silver lining, which is the recovery industry 
which can't wait to give you back your data. Now, if you use a Firewire 
or USB external case for such archiving, always FIRST replace the case 
before seeking help with data problems. ALL the current Firewire/USB 
cases have their own issues centering around 1) power supply failiure 
2) internal circuit failure which are NOT necessarily related to your 
hard drive data integrity.

Hitachi (formerly IBM) will shortly have 400GB/7200 RPM drives on the 
market. Buying quality archive drives is essential, which means NOTHING 
from Seagate, and probably not even Maxtor (we've had a LOT of 
dead/dying Maxtors of late), etc. Western Digital and Hitachi are 
amongst the current nods, but all this seems to change with time. 
Manufacturers do NOT maintain quality standards to any strict sense of 
the word, as they choose raw materials from the CHEAPEST sources 
possible to balance the service life (or "customer service") to profit 
ratio.

Can't wait to see someone perfect holographic storage. Maybe it will be 
archival nirvana.

Well, 'nuff said to add to this debacle...

Richard Brown



On Jun 6, 2004, at 6:13 AM, William Hofius wrote:

> The recent conversation about trying to re-import material from a DVD 
> raises an interesting question (for me at least)–How should one 
> archive their digital video projects?
>
> I am a pack-rat in just about every aspect of my life and have found 
> the same to be true of my digital lifestyle. I have only made a dozen 
> or so small iMovie projects, so I have kept all of the original iMovie 
> projects intact on my hard drive. I made a folder called "Finished 
> iMovie Projects" and once I have exported the iMovie to its final 
> format I place the iMovie project in this folder... just in case. Just 
> in case I need to re-export it, just in case I want to tweak it at a 
> later date, just in case.
>
> The problem is this consumes a lot of space. As my iMovie projects 
> have gotten longer, the iMovie projects have gotten bigger. I have 
> gone from a 20 GB Digital Video partition to an 80 GB partition and 
> now that is almost full.
>
> Making the space problem worse is the fact that my last few projects 
> have been done in Final Cut Express. These projects required that I 
> import several hours of digital video. Between the capture video, 
> render files, etc., these three projects consume nearly 80 GB in and 
> of themselves.
>
> I have been tempted to trash all of my finished projects, but was 
> recently reminded why I keep them in the first place. My in-laws asked 
> me for a VHS copy of all of my work so they could watch it in Japan. 
> (They are older Japanese and not very computer savvy.)
>
> OH, and just in case anything goes wrong, I keep all of my old tapes 
> around. After learning a hard lesson (forgot to import some footage 
> before I re-recorded over it), I buy new DV tapes for each and every 
> project.
>
> Enough blathering and down to the point. How do you fine folks archive 
> your digital media and your digital media projects? Do you keep 
> projects on hard drives forever? Burn projects as data to DVDs? Keep 
> the original tapes around? just don't worry about it?
>
> TIA