archiving footage on DVD

[Phil A. Lefebvre]

>Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 13:43:11 -0500
>From: Malcolm Hamilton <malcolm_hamilton at cbc.ca>
>
>Hello!
>
>I'd love some advice!
>
>I have a hundred-plus hours of Hi-8 family movie footage, dating back ten
>years, and lately I've been worried about it degrading away on the shelf.
>I'll want to edit it someday, but realistically, I won't have the time for
>at least a few years - - so I want to store it, digitally, so that when I
>finally do get around to editing it, it won't be all washed out, etc.
>
>What's the best way of storing it?  Should I buy a mini-DV camera (I've been
>wanting to get one anyway), and dump everything onto mini-DV tapes?  Then
>it's digital, right? Which means it won't degrade anymore?  (or because it's
>still tape, maybe it will?)

Tape is tape, so if not stored properly DV tape will still degrade. 
You just get pixel dropouts instead of fades and smears. The only 
advantage of digital is that you don't lose a generation of quality 
each time you transfer it.

>Is there an external model of a DVD-burner that's faster, or do the internal
>ones work best?

Since you aren't that interested in editing, a stand-alone DVD 
recorder may be best. They can be found for under $700 in the US, and 
are getting better every day. You can hook your Hi-8 camera and 
directly dub to DVD disks. They can hold  up to 6 hours of video per 
disk, though the quality really drops if trying to cram more than 2 
hours per disk. Then you have a digital optical media backup in case 
the analog tape version degrades.

Another option is hard drive archiving. I figure the cost of a DV 
tape and DVD-R blank are about half the price of hard disk storage, 
but is much less convenient if you do plan to edit some day. For 
instance, you can get a 200 GB HD for around US$200. That will hold 
14 hours of DV. 14 DV tapes and 14 DVD-R blanks cost around US$8 
total, or US$114 for the same archive capacity. However, you save the 
time and effort of recapture, a HD takes up less space, and is 
arguably more robust than tape, and maybe a DVD-R. Just a thought.
-- 
__________________________
Phil Lefebvre
Chicago, IL