convert DV to 4GB file

[bensonlo]

I want to backup all my MiniDV tapes to DVD discs. What format shall I choose?

Even harddisk becomes cheaper nowadays, but I have around 50 DV tapes (50 x 13GB = 650GB!!!)

I want to backup all my tapes to 4.7GB DVD discs. Shall I choose mpeg2, h.264 or something else?
It is not required to playback on my dvd player.

Thanks,
Benson

[stantheman1976]

If you want to turn them into standard DVD for TV viewing you have to convert to MPEG-2. You can convert to MPEG-2 and author that to DVD or if there are all in one programs that will take the original file and convert it straight to a basic DVD use that. Your other option would be if you have a DVD player that will read DivX you can store them as data files on a DVD and watch from there.

[DB83]

Do you wish to retain the quality of the original ?

Go you wish to play them back on the PC ?

One solution would be to transfer them in 4 gig sections as DV-avi (approx 17 minutes) on to the PC and burn a data-dvd disk as the back up.

or

do a full capture of the tape and create 4 gig rar archives and burn those to data-dvd disks as backups.

To get back to the original, you then import the rar files back to the PC and extract the data from the archive.

If you want to put just one tape on to one disk then you will lose quality whatever format you choose to compress. You cannot get that quality back by re-converting. MPEG2 will give you the best quality for 4 gig per hour.

[edDV]

If these are important keep the tape original and make backups to a HDD. 500GB drives are around $99 or less if you shop.