Archival Video Format War

[Agentx86]

I am posting this in the newbie forum as it is my only option for 24 hours.
Hello, I am a longtime lurker on these forums, and they have been a wealth of information to both myself and a couple of friends that I have recommended Videohelp.com to.
I have captured some, and am planning on capturing 50+ 8mm (not Hi-8) and VHS tapes to my computer for archival purposes, and eventual authoring to DVD (yes I am aware of the limited lifespan of writable DVDs, hence the archiving). I have the original VHS camcorder and the original 8mm camcorder that I use for playback through my Canon Optura 50's DV pass-through. One of my main reasons for archiving this footage now is that both camcorders are getting old, and especially with the 8mm there is the issue of having nothing to play the video back when the camcorder breaks. I have found that I get very good results just using the original players -- very few tracking errors or chroma noise. After capturing, I import the DV into VirtualDub where I crop, resize, and do some light noise filtering.
My problem is that while I have 940GB of total storage space on my computer, I do not have the room nor the money to store 100 hours+ of DV footage. I toyed with the idea of using MPEG2 as an archival format, but I realize the problems with editing MPEG2 down the road when I go to edit/author these projects. I have also thought, and am currently testing out, the idea of using XVID, encoded at 2-pass 8mbps with an I-frame interval of 60. Will this footage present any special hurdles in editing later? Am I crazy for even thinking of using XVID/MPEG4 as an archival format? I believe I am asking for the magic editing codec here. For the record, my main editing program is Premiere 2.0.
Sorry for the long post, but I try to dispell any questions as I'm typing. I am looking forward to any advice y'all can give me.
Stephen

[edDV]

Well, many of us are in the same boat with you. I'm editing and archiving my Betacam, Hi8, 8mm and DV formats first mostly because quality is higher and hours of tape are more manageable. In these cases it is all going to DV tape and/or hard drive with an encoded DVD copy master for easy viewing and making distribution copies.

I intend to dub all this to HD or BluRay DVD when costs are reasonable.

I have so many VHS tapes that I'm looking to automate capture. Mostly my current strategy is to store the tapes in a dry 45-55 F degree space until I can get around to doing the dubs

Digital storage costs are dropping each year. That is good.

[Agentx86]

Yes, it seems my best bet is to stock up on DV tapes for the captures I do now, and eventually stock up on hard drives (only 1.3TB for 100 hours!). I wonder what the lifespan of BluRay or HD-DVD is going to be, or are those formats going to be as volatile as writable DVDs are today?

[edDV]

Who knows? What you can count on is massive data storage will get cheaper and cheaper and deeper compression will get better. DV makes a good choice for quality video for now. MPeg2 or 4 is good for less important material.

[ozymango]

One thing I've started doing is archiving DV to DVD, not by compressing but just splitting AVI files across multiple DVDs (3 DVDs = 1 DV tape, 13gb/hour). Granted, I haven't got hundreds of tapes, but I started doing this because I did a couple of transfers and DVDs for people (friends who actually paid me to do stuff) and later on I needed to edit some stuff for another project and had to transfer the original tapes again and ... ugh.

This way, I've got reasonably fast access to the source material in the best digital format for editing (or close enough!) and I just happen to have a stack of DVD cases that hold 3 DVDs, so each case will hold 1 hour of DV on 3 discs. Of course, this actually takes up a bit more physical room than a plain DV tape, but for editing purposes it does speed things along.

[Agentx86]

Yes, I believe in the end that I'll end up archiving everything to hard disks as DV. One problem with archiving to DV tapes is that most, if not all, of my VHS and 8mm tapes are 2-2.5 hours long. This would require me to split across 2 to 3 DV tapes.

[edDV]

Yes, I believe in the end that I'll end up archiving everything to hard disks as DV. One problem with archiving to DV tapes is that most, if not all, of my VHS and 8mm tapes are 2-2.5 hours long. This would require me to split across 2 to 3 DV tapes.

I find I can edit out 30-50%. Pictures of shoes, sky, etc.

[Agentx86]

While I can see myself editing out perhaps 10% of the footage, there's no way I could edit out even 30% from most of this stuff. When you have a full-size VHS camcorder (with that wonderful lead-acid battery!) on your shoulder you tend to know when you're taping and when you're not. For the 8mm stuff I could see myself getting closer to cutting 20% though.

[edDV]

Comes down to user decision

MiniDv tape $2.20-2.99/hr.
Hard drives $2.50-6.00/hr.

Reused or clearance 8mm/Hi8 tape might be cheaper. It seems to me Sony has discontinued most 8mm/Hi8/Digital8 as of Jan 1, 2007. Most of it has disappeared from the net retailers.

Time to buy on clearance.

[Agentx86]

Well, it seems that I am going to archive the most important stuff first, and keep it on hard drives. If I went with the dubbing to DV tape method I'd be in the same situation I'm in now--relying on a camcorder to playback my footage. So, in the end:

-DV Tapes-Have to capture back to computer for editing, 2-3 tapes required for most recordings, still locked into a format that is not exactly universal, using the cheapest tapes=$2.50/hr

-DV on Hard Drives-Data Always Accesible, No splitting of files, Universal format, Backup needed, if stored on 320GB (298GB formatted) drives $90/298GB= .30/GB. So to store an hour of footage is .30*13= $3.90

So finally, to archive 100 hours of footage (1.3TB) with HDs is going to be about $400 at current prices and archiving to DV is going to be about $250. Doesn't seem so bad now. If there wasn't the well known problem with degrading DVD writable discs, it'd be a no brainer, I'd just archive the DV to DVDs as split files as was mentioned by ozymango, but I want this stuff to be accesible in 5 years or so.
Thanks guys for all the discussion, and for helping another n00b on his way!

[Mr. Dweezel]

Yes, I believe in the end that I'll end up archiving everything to hard disks

That's what I've started to do!

I have a lot of external hard drive enclosures, but the drives have been filling up.
I was burning everything to DVDs, but I don't know how long they'll last.

So I started putting the valuable videos on hard drives. I remove the drives from
the enclosures and install new drives, until they're full.

I just ordered a few more drives. Seagate 250gb...... Cost about $80
That's equal to $1.28 per blank DVD. That's about what I was paying for
blank DVDs a couple of years ago, so it's becoming worthwhile to store everything
on drives...............if my math works out correctly! :P

Even so, the drives should be more reliable than the disks. Hopefully!

[Agentx86]

And as drives become less expensive over time, we can afford to have backups!
As for external drives, while they're more expensive, I'll most likely end up using them for most of my archiving. They also adds quite a bit more versatility, especially as I'm considering getting myself a bright, shiny Mac this next year. Most importantly though, it allows you to manually turn them off, and when they're off, they're not subjected to the heat within the computer case itself, and they will last longer simply from not being used 24/7.
For now, I'm going to focus on filling up my 250GB external and my 160GB internal. That should keep me busy for a few....hours. I just wish I didn't have all the junk I do on my other drives, over 480 gigs worth of general stuff.