OT: video archiving

[vqdriver]

ok, at this point i'm don't know if OT threads are okay anymore, but since there seems to be a fair amount of non-cycling knowledge, i'm gonna try. mods can delete and i won't be offended...

i have roughly thirty miniDV tapes, all shot with an HD camcorder and all of them are of my kids. i need to find an archiving solution cuz the idea of somehow preserving all these tapes is not enticing. i don't mind the linear fashion of it, and i chose it cuz our wedding videographer told me that the tapes are the only non-compressed, full quality method available to the layman.

i'd like to know what ya'll are doing with your own tapes/video. do you keep it on a backup hard drive, burn to dvds, keep the tapes......

obviously, i'd like to keep the HD quality. blu-ray burners are within reach (tho the blank media is still crazy expensive) so i could just burn it to BD discs i guess. tho the idea of downloading each tape in real time (cuz, you know, it's tape) is daunting. and if i go the BD route, is it better to burn an actual BD disc that i can play, or just burn it as raw data?

forget editing for now, it's not realistic that i'll actually do it.

[xjoex]

I would convert to video to an image (iso, mp4, whatever your choice) but instead of burning DVDs, I would store them on hard drives, get two 1 TB hard drives,
http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1747824
http://webobjects2.cdw.com/is/image/CDW/1747824?$product_230$

Hook up your camcorder to you computer and record with imovie or whatever program you want.

Then make two copies of your videos, in case one of the drives goes bad. You can always convert the videos as new formats come out.


-Joe

[SoCalSteve]

ok, at this point i'm don't know if OT threads are okay anymore, but since there seems to be a fair amount of non-cycling knowledge, i'm gonna try. mods can delete and i won't be offended...

i have roughly thirty miniDV tapes, all shot with an HD camcorder and all of them are of my kids. i need to find an archiving solution cuz the idea of somehow preserving all these tapes is not enticing. i don't mind the linear fashion of it, and i chose it cuz our wedding videographer told me that the tapes are the only non-compressed, full quality method available to the layman.

i'd like to know what ya'll are doing with your own tapes/video. do you keep it on a backup hard drive, burn to dvds, keep the tapes......

obviously, i'd like to keep the HD quality. blu-ray burners are within reach (tho the blank media is still crazy expensive) so i could just burn it to BD discs i guess. tho the idea of downloading each tape in real time (cuz, you know, it's tape) is daunting. and if i go the BD route, is it better to burn an actual BD disc that i can play, or just burn it as raw data?

forget editing for now, it's not realistic that i'll actually do it.

OT threads are fine and encouraged...

Just not when it becomes a political pissing match, etc..(you get the idea).

Lots of great knowledge here. We can and should share it!

Thanks,

Steve

[vqdriver]

the hard drive route is tempting cuz the cost per gig is so much better. my main reservation is the moving parts and the magnetic nature of the device. i've had to replace worn out hard drives more often then i like, tho the mirroring would address that....
optical media is immune to those issues, but i'm not sure if degradation is an issue.

[xjoex]

the hard drive route is tempting cuz the cost per gig is so much better. my main reservation is the moving parts and the magnetic nature of the device. i've had to replace worn out hard drives more often then i like, tho the mirroring would address that....
optical media is immune to those issues, but i'm not sure if degradation is an issue.

The reason I like drives (and a pair of them at that...) is that you will probably upgrade as time passes, always moving from drive to drive... That said I have two lacie 1TB drives running my media server. They started out in 1999 as 10gb drives and as drives got bigger and cheaper I continued to upgrade. So my data has moved to newer hardware every few years.


-Joe

[dimsy]

the hard drive route is tempting cuz the cost per gig is so much better. my main reservation is the moving parts and the magnetic nature of the device. i've had to replace worn out hard drives more often then i like, tho the mirroring would address that....
optical media is immune to those issues, but i'm not sure if degradation is an issue.

in the course of the passed few years hard drive technology has advanced A LOT.

Look into solid state hard drives. they are a bit more expensive than disc drives but have no moving parts and lower power consumption. i believe the largest size comes in the 512 gb variety. (but you're looking at about $1-$2 per gb.)

i'm not sure if it applies to external hard drives, but most laptops with accelerometers will park the heads of the hard disc when sudden motion is detected. it is a nice safety feature.

good luck.

[SoCalSteve]

Also, if you are not planning on using them much, dont turn them on (hard drives). A hard drive that has a life span of a few thousand hours will last a very long time if its not used very much...

Just a thought.

Also, rather than buying 1 TB drive, buy 2 x 500 gig drives and back up the same information on both. That way, if one fails, you still have a redundant drive.

Just (another) thought.

[vqdriver]

I suppose video can be treated much like any other "data" and be put on some type of RAID array. I guess it makes sense. Doesn't really matter if it's video or my tax returns