back up the movie for later edition

[kkorni]

At first sorry for my English, it's not my first language.

I'm pretty new to video editing and I have few very large movie in dv/avi format that I want to backup/convert
for later editing (when I become more experienced).
My question is, what would be the best format to convert with no lost (or little) the video quality but reducing the size
of movie.

Thanx

[guns1inger]

In my opinion there isn't a better format than DV-AVI as far as ease of use and compression/quality ratio. If you aren't ready to edit it now, but think you will in the future, keep it on mini-DV tape. Otherwise add a big external HDD and store it there. Any other format that gives better compression will reduce quality - either now or later when you edit - and be harder to edit. Most lossless compression formats are much larger than DV-AVI, and Divx/Xvid will degrade your footage. Mpeg-2 can get you some space back, but to maintain quality you would need a high bitrate, and the size saving would not be that great. Mpeg-2 also does not edit as nicely as DV-AVI, even with specialist tools, and does not re-encode as well either. A good DV codec (e.g. Sony) can take up to 5 goes before becoming noticably degraded, whereas mpeg-2 shows signs after the first go.

In short, keep DV, even if you have to keep it on tape, until you are ready.

[kkorni]

Thank you for your response. I'll buy a big HD to store my DV movies.

Korni