how best can I save those precious moments

[chris langham]

Hi there.
I've only just started using a digital camcorder and making home DVD's. Can you please help me decide how best to save this footage for later life, for example if I want to make compilations or just have a quality backup?? My options seem to be?

* keep DV tape - expensive and worried about deterioration
* save DV footage onto a disc - files so big, also makes it expensive
* Save as .avi or .mpeg2 - which is best quality???
* make a DVD and keep that as the only backup - is this ok for quality? Will I lose any quality if I use TMPGEnc DVDauthor or similar to make compilations later

Also can you simply change the .vob filename to .mpg to get it back to mpeg2 quality? My only final worry is the lifetime of dvdr discs. I read that some might last only 10 years or so, is that true? I would hate to pull out a home dvd of my little boy when he's older and it won't read.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks a lot.

[Capmaster]

A very common reason people get started in the DVD creation game is to archive camcorder footage. It's a good idea not to leave it on tape if you plan to keep it for a long time.

* keep DV tape - expensive and worried about deterioration
* save DV footage onto a disc - files so big, also makes it expensive
* Save as .avi or .mpeg2 - which is best quality???
* make a DVD and keep that as the only backup - is this ok for quality? Will I lose any quality if I use TMPGEnc DVDauthor or similar to make compilations later

1) DV stored on disc. You don't need to store it as DV. Like you said the files are huge, and unnecessary.
2) AVI or MPEG2. You could store the AVI or MPEG2 file on a DVD written as a DVD-ROM. This is a data disc and should work fine as a backup archive.
3) Make DVD. With camcorder footage the weakest link is the footage itself. Commercial DVDs use the MPEG2 format and I'm sure the quality of your footage is not superior to those. You won't lose anything quality-wise using MPEG2 unless you do something to really trash it like setting your bitrate to some ridiculously low setting in order to try to save $1 and cram too much onto one DVD. Don't try to fit more than about 2 hours on a DVD. The blanks are cheap ....buy plenty and don't short-change yourself by trying to squeeze 4,5, or 6 hours onto 1 disc.

I don't understand what you mean by "make compilations later". If you mean "can I store the MPEG2 on DVD and later copy it off, make a nice DVD with menus and stuff and then burn the new DVD", then yes. As long as you have the original files stored safely on DVD you can copy to HD and author/burn anytime in the future and you won't lose quality.

[andyp1]

Nothing much to add to capmasters reply other than life of DVDs . Here is a link to a very good DVD Media Thread It suggests that decent media should be readable in 100 - 200 years .