Best Process for archiving Umatic tapes

[mark23]

Hello.

I have been given about 100 Umatic SP tapes that were master tapes of local television shows at a community channel. I would like to archive these to some media. I have a few options. Either DVD, DVCAM, h.264 or another file format on hard drives in a raid, or all of the above.

I would like to know the best archive method for quality and archive life. As the Umatic SP tapes are taking up a lot of storage and I have limited equipment to play them, I would like to dispose of the tapes after they are archived as well, or should they be kept as well?

I do not mind putting some money into this project, however this is only a hobby so I cannot afford to spend enormous amounts of money on it.

I have 2 Sony umatic SP decks for playback.

Thanks very much
Mark

[nwo]

Seeing as you have a Canopus copy them to AVI-DV and back them up to miniDV tapes, but keep other backups on disc and hhd.

[mark23]

I will also be getting a blackmagic intensity extreme shortly. Should I upconvert them to HD or should leave them in their original state. Most of these tapes are still perfect quality so not a lot of restoration is required either.

Thanks
Mar

[2Bdecided]

Transfer in native SD, store uncompressed/lossless files, or DV-AVI if space is tight.

Check if a TBC helps. Ensure levels are correct. Keep all metadata (labels, titles, etc) with the files.

Also burn DVD copies if people will want easy/casual access.

Cheers,
David.

[jman98]

I'd also recommend having multiple backups such as storing these to another hard drive that you remove from a PC after copying the files to it and you keep disconnected most of the time. Hard drives last a long time if they stored unattached to anything. If you burn DVD copies be sure you use either Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim (anything BUT their cheap "Life" series) for best results and long life.