How do you archive your DV home videos?

[BrianK]

I am starting to convert my Digital8 DV home videos to DVD, and was wondering how other people archive their DV home videos. I have probably close to 50 Digital 8 tapes and so far, they have been around 9GB when capturing them to my hard drive. I have a 200 GB hard drive, but that won't even come close. After you convert them to MPEG-2, they are around 2 GB. Do you delete the original from your hard drive after you create the DVD and use the original Digital 8 tape as the archive?

Just wondering what other people do for this issue.

[SMHarman]

Yes - For mass storage devices DV8 or MiniDV in my case cannot really be beaten on price or capacity.

If you've got 50 then you've never planned to erase them before so what would you do if you wiped these tapes?

From a long term perspective you will have difficulty reading DV8 or Mini DV in about 15 years when the drives to play them become scarce. The data on the tape should last a fair while longer.

Similar problem to playing Beta, Reel to Reel Ampex Video, Audio Cassette and LPs

Store in a cool dry place with some silica bags