Video Storage Possibilities

[The Sumerian]

I was wondering how I would go about storing video the exceeds the 60min limit of miniDV, without moving to LP mode creating loss of quality, and not compressing the video to fit on a DVD? Is there another form of media I can store a 90 minute film on without compression or loss of quality?

[takeshi]

First of all, LP and SP have the same quality (not like VHS at all). In theory, reliability drops but a number of people use LP without problems. That said, I don't use LP at all.

You might want to check into direct-to-disk (hard drive) recording options.

[NoodleMaps]

You can also purchase 90 minutes SP mode MiniDV tapes

edit * nevermind I am sick here toady, I think the longest SP mode you can buy is 83 minutes not 90. Sorry. **

[The Sumerian]

Is that true? LP does not change the quality of the video? I don't understand why there would be two settings then. Why would you pay for something and have it on a setting, like SP 60min, that gets you less for your money? What is the purpose of two recording speeds then? Does the audio decrease in quality?

[The Sumerian]

Oh sorry I see you reliability decreases I missed that. Disregard the other post. But how do you mean reliability decreases? In what way, it's reliability to record? Does it get diostorted?

[davideck]

Interchange of LP tapes can be a real problem. LP tapes recorded on one machine may not play back on another. So if your original record machine ever dies, playing back your tapes could be problematic.

[greymalkin]

Sumerian,

The lp mode squeezes more digital information on less tape, leaving a smaller "footprint" if you will. This basically means if you get a scratch or defect on a bit of tape you will have lost more video than if it was spread out over more of the tape. This is a really dumbed down explanation and shows perfectly my understanding of the subject Just thought i'd pass that along until a better explanation comes.

[stantheman1976]

Is LP usually 12 bit audio on most cameras? I know it is on the two I have that are different brands, so I'm assuming it will probably be true on others.

[guns1inger]

Some cameras come out of the box set to either 12bit or 32k. Neither of which are good. LP also foregoes error checking, so if things do go screwy, there is little you can do about it. I have one client with two people who shoot footage. One never uses long play, the other always does. The LP tapes always start showing up errors and contamination from previous recordings after only a few uses, whereas the SP tapes can be reused around twice as many times.

Personally, I would not use SP, I would by extra tapes.

[edDV]

The difference is track spacing. Otherwise they all record 25 Mb/s video and 12/16 bit 32k/48k audio.

DVCAM uses 15 micron spacing
DV SP uses 10 micron spacing
DV LP uses 6.7 micron spacing.

The reason DVCAM used 15 micron spacing (40 min per 1hr tape) was to assure that a tape can be recorded on one camcorder and played back to a different player without extreme mechanical calibration. There is no difference in the DV signal recorded. Digital8 is also the same signal.

The original assumption for 10 micron consumer DV was the video would be played back on the same transport (camcorder). This was all SONY thinking. Panasonic thought 10 micron was OK for DVCPro.

Time shuttle ... 2 yrs

Sony implies Panasonic was correct. 10 microns works for moving between machines, so implied LP can be used with tighter track spacing for 90min playback on the same transport.

Sony was overly conservative the first time and over-reacted with LP. LP is risky on the same transport over time as mechanical tolerance loosens and is high risk on a different transport.

If you record LP, transfer it quickly while you can. Don't archive LP.
I don't use LP at all.

[irongang]

I use WinRAR's 'split to volumes' feature to chop the files (all files for the project grouped together) into smaller pieces which can then be burned to DVD-R. If you use the 'Store' compression setting it doesn't take very long because it's not actually compressing, it's just making a series of uncompressed RAR files. You could compress, of course, but it's pretty time consuming with not much compression in the end.

[ronnylov]

Instead of Winrar I use VirtualDub direct stream copy mode and save as segmented avi file. I can set the file size of each segment down to 50 MB. This way I just fill upp each DVD-R disc with avi-segments over the number of discs needed. 60 minutes requires 3 discs. I also create one extra disc with PAR2 files created with QuickPAR to be able to recover some missing files if one of the discs does not work. This way I burn 4 discs and can recover all the data with only 3 of them, not matter which one is lost.

If you need to store more than 60 minutes then just burn the splitted files to more discs.

To get back the video to one new avi file just copy all the files from all the discs to the same directory, including the PAR2 files. Open the first PAR2 file in Quickpar and verify/restore all files to know you have a perfect copy. Then just open the first avi segment in virtualdub and it will automatically open all the segments and save to a single file on the hard drive with direct stream copy if you don't want it segmented.

The quickpar files are not needed but I use it to make sure I always can verify a good copy.

I also save to miniDV tapes. If it does not fit one 60 minutes tape just use more tapes.