[MacDV] Re: archiving: mini-DV, DVD or hd? The Sequel

[Mark M. Florida]

On Friday, January 10, 2003, at 11:54  AM, Mark O'Brien wrote:

> I recently recorded some 15-20 year old beta tapes onto Digital8 (DV 
> on an
> 8mm tape) because I was worried about physical degradation of the beta
> tapes. My thought is they are now on newer media that will last for 
> another
> 15-20 years, and I won't suffer any generational loss when I find 
> something
> more stable at a reasonable cost down the road. I bought the Digital8
> cassettes in bulk for ~$3/cassette.

That's what I was going to suggest.  Get it onto a new tape NOW -- you 
won't lose any (perceptible) quality going to miniDV or Digital8, and 
then when you *do* get around to getting an editing system together, 
edit them and put the edited versions on DVDs for watching.  You can 
always transfer the archived tape copies to a new and better format 
later, and since it'll be digital, there won't be a loss in quality.

- Mark F.