next to the 8mm tape whats the best way to store "raw" captured f

[st711]

Hello Guys

I have my 8mm tapes catured as .AVI. They are currently stored on a 1T byte external HDD. I edit, then make DVD's and give them away to friends and family quite readily. Now, what to and how should I save the .AVI's? I am interested in longevity. These files are anywhere from 7G to 8G in size.

Happy holiday!

Stewart

[edDV]

Hello Guys

I have my 8mm tapes catured as .AVI. They are currently stored on a 1T byte external HDD. I edit, then make DVD's and give them away to friends and family quite readily. Now, what to and how should I save the .AVI's? I am interested in longevity. These files are anywhere from 7G to 8G in size.

Happy holiday!

Stewart

If DV or HDV, they can be recorded back to tape as a backup. Quality DV tape (e.g. Panasonic PQ) is less than $3/13GB online. Otherwise keep two copies on hard disc and a third offsite just like any other backup data.

I keep my DV-HDV material on original tapes and on two hard drives (one off-site). When the hard drives get to 4 years old, I dub to new drives and so on.

[lordsmurf]

Chop into 2-hour segments, convert a copy to DV, and store back to tape. It's a decent archival method, if you don't want to buy more hard drives.

Another option is high bitrate MPEG, chopped into 15 minute pieces, stored on DVD-R.

Or just buy 2TB RAID1 drives.
7-8GB is puny.