backing up footage

[JJJewel]

I am wanting to back up footage to DVDs (externals make me nervous -- long story). I started reading about what would be the best compression to use and everything I have read has said Mpeg 2. I was using compressor to compress it to Mpeg 2, but when I played it back in Final Cut Pro there was no audio.
So I went back to my research and found out that Mpeg 2 tends to not work great in Final Cut Pro.
Any suggestions on the best way to back up footage straight to DVD?

[edDV]

What is your source format?

If DV, archive as DV. A DVDR-5 holds ~20min. A DVDR-9 about 38min.

MPeg2 is lossy even at the highest CBR rate.

I back to multiple Hard drives and keep the tapes.

[JJJewel]

It is DV. I keep hoping some compressing elf will appear and make it less time consuming!

[redwudz]

It is DV. I keep hoping some compressing elf will appear and make it less time consuming!

The best you can do is use a very fast CPU, multiple cores can also help for conversion to MPEG-2. DV has PCM audio, so you could convert that to AC3 and save a fair bit of space.

MPEG-2 you would have to encode at about 9000Kbps to 9500Kbps to keep decent quality on a DVD compared to your DV file. You can get about an hour or so of video on a DVD-5 at that bitrate using AC3 audio. But keeping the DV tapes in storage is still the best way to archive.

[lordsmurf]

Keep the DV tapes for archives.

Create a secondary archive of high bitrate I-frame only MPEG-2, for the backup. Or even a DVD-Video at 1-hour with max bitrate allow by the spec (9800k,10080k). AC3 audio, or even MP2 audio. Just a backup of the main archive, after all. Can store on big external 2TB hard drive, put at another location, like office, parents/kids house, etc. Keep disc version at house as local secondary archive.

[JJJewel]

Thank you!