Best way to capture and archive analog video

[brergo]

I am looking for some advice on how to capture video from my analog camcorder and archive it. I have about a dozen or so hours of analog video from the past 5-6 years and would like to put it all into some sort of format to archive it since once my camcorder breaks or I decide to upgrade to digital, I will not be able to play all that video back very easily. I have Studio Deluxe 8 AV/DV and 2 hard drives. One has about 23GB free (and I can free up probably another 10GB on it by getting rid of WinME and just using Win2K) and the other, my main drive, has 48 GB free (but I can't use it all, must save room for future software additions).

What would be the best way to capture all this video (ie: what size/length increments, etc.)?

What format is best to store it in that will give me a happy medium between quality and space conservation?

Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Conquest10]

if its just going to be stored on you hard drive and you don't want it to play in a dvd player, i would go with divx/xvid.

[trillium]

It pretty much boils down to what format you are going to archive to, be it for storage on your drive or burning it out to a disc format...

That is the first question that needs to be answered. After that everything else will pretty much fall into place

[brergo]

trillium-

Thats kinda what I was looking for advice on...what format to use. I'd like to archive it to CD or my hard drive and am looking for decent quality but not huge file size.

[trillium]

Newbie section has some great info on the different formats. I myself capture AVI and burn to DVD. There is also (S)VCD, Divx, and a few other formats.

It all depends wether you want to be able to play back in a DVD Player or just going to playback on your computer. I am unfamiliar with the other formats but keep in mind that your finished product is only as good as your source.

goodluck

[swolf387]

AVi is huge as far as size if your just storing it. If cost was no issue, buy an external hard drive $100-$150, download your video in mpeg-2 format, and save them on your new external hard drive until you decide to burn them with a dvd burner in a few years when computers will come standard with that ability. You will also be able to take that external hard drive and plug it into any computer and play your archived videos. From there you may burn some of your good quality video to svcd or even less roomy vcd, and have your favorite clips on cd-r's. But you will always have your original files in good quality format ready to be put into dvd format. Just a thought!

[Conquest10]

AVi is huge as far as size if your just storing it.

if its uncompressed. like i said, he could use divx/xvid. both use compression.

[holistic]

What would be the best way to capture all this video (ie: what size/length increments, etc.)?

Ok from the top : Your cheapest route would be to go out and get a DV camcorder with video input (capture) capabilities then copy the analog tapes to DV. Once done store the tapes in a moisture free, room temperature safe place. Later on at your leisure you could 'import' the files through a 'firewire' card and edit away to your chosen compression format (MPEG1, MPEG2 or ughh even MPEG4.)
Another option you may have is to 'rent' , borrow ! , a DV camcorder (or similar device) with an AD (analog -> digital) converter and save those 'dozen' or so hours on a 160Gb + drive (remember DV AVI is ~3.7 M/b sec ~ 13 Mb hour) then also pack the drive away in a safe place for future editing / conversions.


What format is best to store it in that will give me a happy medium between quality and space conservation?

There is no right answer here - what is your happy place ?!. If it is family videos then the best space/quality ratio is MPEG2. I put my family videos on 700Mb CD's at 20 minute clips with a video bitrate of approx 4500 and audio of 192. The results are impressive, and since CD's are cheap this proberly your best choice.


I am looking for some advice on how to capture video from my analog camcorder and archive it. I have about a dozen or so hours of analog video from the past 5-6 years and would like to put it all into some sort of format to archive it since once my camcorder breaks or I decide to upgrade to digital, I will not be able to play all that video back very easily. I have Studio Deluxe 8 AV/DV and 2 hard drives. One has about 23GB free (and I can free up probably another 10GB on it by getting rid of WinME and just using Win2K) and the other, my main drive, has 48 GB free (but I can't use it all, must save room for future software additions).

I am not familar with Studio Deluxe's encoding capabilities but if it is high quality MPEG2's you are after at a reasonable cost then I recommend TMPGEnc and of course the exceptional (AND FREE) Virtual Dub. Last time i tried it Virtual Dub did not work with firewire cards, however it can handle the DV codec. Use it to add filters, titles then 'frameserve' to TMPGEnc for some high quality MPEG2's. Info on Virtual Dub, TMPGEnc and frameserving can be found in the HOW TO sections

Hope this helps ][

[brergo]

I thank everyone for their input. It seems that the best way to archive the raw analog footage from my 8mm camcorder is to tranfer it to DV. I don't have a DV camcorder, but a friend of mine does have a nice Sony DV camcorder which I could borrow. He doesn't have any analog inputs on it though, only USB and firewire.

Is there a way to use my Studio 8 Deluxe AV/DV capture card to pass the analog signal through the break out box and right to the firewire port onto the DV camcorder? Or, do I have to capture the analog footage in 4GB increments (the limit with the software) and then somehow get it out to the DV camcorder? What is the quickest, easiest way to transfer this footage?

Brian