Disaster Recovery help

[tvfd1461]

Ok i have searched the forums and still can not find a straight answer, i keep reading what i take as opinions.
I work for the US Govt. Please no flaming. We work with VHS/SVHS, UMATIC, betacam, dv, MiniDV and D2 media. We have several thousand items in holding that we need to back up(disaster recovery).
My question is:

Is there a single standard for a 1:1 analog video to digital video backup or copy?
I can not figure out which is the best route to go.
We DO NOT need to edit, but we do need to reproduce all videos and have the output be the exact same as the input or better.

Thanks in Advance.
Michael

[sacajaweeda]

Do you own the rights or have permission to make copies?

[NightWing]

Not a positive answer but here goes.

1) check with the Smithsonian Institution. They have been working on something simular to your problem for over ten years.

2) Check the latest DV mag. The latest issue covers HD recording. If you use a superior form of recording over the material you are recording. You are less prone to degrade. You may still get it but may be acceptiable.

3) Remenber that the data can have checks but if the storage media dies it goes to. As in Laser Rot of defective LD disk. Try to stay from dye or anything using a binder as in magnetic tape. Record to temp to stamped certified media is the best you can do. Not perffict.

4) Realize its will be a non ending movement. Both media and playback units have a life span that can doom future playback. This is what the Smithsonian Institution realised and are planing on review and transfer.

5) Even the best layed plains can fail. The orginal SW film was broken down into three color and printed on the best stock and stored in a low humidity etc record keeping place since the late 70's. When they pull it in 1998 or 99 they found they had problems. Also if it was not for a set of engeeries, a lot of the old TV series recorded on AMPEX video tapes would be loss to time.

6) I think UCLA film department or any of the studios could help. They know storage and could help you. Also if you are not NASA check with them.

7) All of the stuff seen here is based on some form of compression. This included MPEG 1 - 4 and the variants like Divx. Each has some form of loss.

8) The online non "compression" digital is the old LD but that is about dead. It was a "analog" in a digital world. Would work but is trully out of date.

9) One concept would be to use maybe MJPEG. Its old but simply a series of JPEG stills. It does not compress groups of frames but only that frame. So if a frame was bad would not spoil as much as MPEG.

10) One last item. DO NOT PICK JUST ONE STORAGE WAY OR ONE COMPRESSION. That is death.

I have almsot the same problem. I have programs I generated starting back in the mid 70's I am planing on keeping. I uses some of these concepts to keep them live.

Good luck. It not easy.
Nightwing

PS: Just remembered seeing somthing on 1:1 If I can find the reference will post here.

PSS: I think it was Newtek Tsunami VT[4] that did stuff in 1:1 but it could have been editing only. Also try Lucas. Yep that one.

[tvfd1461]

sacajaweeda. we absolutely have rights to reproduce. We not only reproduce videos for the govt but our holdings as of last week on just about every type of media known was upwards of about 1.5 million.


Nightwing, thanks for the info, I will check on all the ideas you put out there. NASA(Marshal Space Flight Center) is about a block up the road from us so we should be able to have a field trip up there and meet with them.

Thanks again!
Michael

[NightWing]

Good luck Michael!

[sacajaweeda]

sacajaweeda. we absolutely have rights to reproduce.

That's cool. I was just postwhoring anyways.

[NightWing]

There is one encoder you may want to check up on. Its called Huffyuv. Its a lossless encoder. Still will need to digitize the footage but could fit part of your requirements.

Forgot about it. Sorry.

[handyguy]

I would think that since you work for the us gov, you should ask them. After all, don't they already know everything?

[tvfd1461]

Thats what i was thinking, but seems as if they dont, so of course they give me a deadline to figure it out.