Methods to archive now/edit later

[newbie04]

Greetings all,

I have some concerns about a little project I'm gonna do, and don't know if I'm going about it the best way. The following text is the background for the whole thing, but if you don't want to read it all, in a nutshell:
I would like to know the best methods to archive DV AVI, so you can edit the files later when you have time.

My friend who lives outside the states, wants me to record a 1 hour daily show (mon-fri) that she doesn't get in her country. Since she's a patient gal, she's willing to wait however long it takes for me to send it over to her (since if I didn't send it, she'd never get to see it anyway). I got school during the week, so I planned to just record the show on my jvc s-vhs deck during the week, and then when I get home during the weekend ( I live on campus during the week) I would send the tape...

BUT then I started to think that buying a tape every week for the next year is not economically feaseable for a student who is un-employed at the moment. =)

So then I thought of a new plan...

I'll just buy say 3 Fuji H471S Master ST-120 S-VHS Video Tapes to record in the highest possible quality and using my ADVC-100 convert it to digital format and transfer it all into my external 160gb drive (note: i am using a laptop).

Then I'll edit out the commercials, and will have to crop the black bars on the side, and that stuff on the bottom (the tracking?) I think. I don't know if I'll need to use filters?

After that put each episode in either SVCD or DVD (when i get a hold of a dvd burner) format and just wait until the end of each month to send her discs she can watch. I have about two hundred of CD-Rs in storage, so I thought this was a good idea.

Now, I was thinking 3 tapes to rotate/tape over during the course of the year, also I don't think I can edit all 5 hours during the weekend, so having extra blank tape to keep recording shows just in case I lack time. During the week, I could bring along my external drive/laptop to contine with the process at school.

The thing is, I know I'll be really busy with classes, especially when exams come up. So I probably will have no time to edit/author until winter break in december. I don't have enough hard disk space to continually store the shows since the DV AVI is like 13gb per hour. I was thinking worse case scenario, I would make like a 350mb divx or something file that I can upload to my webhost for her to download to watch on her computer and/or she could take it and make a disc herself to watch on tv.

After thinking about this a bit more, this is actually a little more time-consuming then I first thought, so my question is, what do you guys suggest are the best methods to archive stuff now, that you want to edit later when you have time, without losing out on the quality?

I guess to sum up the final product is:
SVCD or DVD format to watch on tv
or
Divx format to download from web

Since the source tapes are going to be re-used, the final digital product has to be the best quality it can be because it's going to be the only copy left.

I did do a search and found the following threads:
Store Now, Edit Later - suggests stand alone DVD Recorder
In what format should I keep my source-videos? - suggests to keep source tape
What is best avi codec for archiving and editing? - suggests to store on DV or Digital 8 tape?

Thank you for any input, ideas, etc. and especially for reading all this!

[gshelley61]

DVD recorder. Capture at 1 hour (XP) mode - one DVD per show. The resulting MPEG2 (VOB) files can be trimmed (commercials removed) and re-authored with specific chapter points and menus, etc. then burned to a final DVD later, all with no loss of quality (because re-encoding the MPEG2 will not be required). If you want, record to DVD-RW's so they can be re-used once the final DVD's are created. That's what I do. This method is way easier and much, much faster than what you are suggesting to do. Plus, some blank DVD-R's are now less than 50 cents each when you buy them in bulk spindles.

The image quality in XP recording mode is virtually identical to the original source.

[SatStorm]

You have ADVC-100 right?

What I would do:

Tape the show on VHS. Then, using ADVC 100 and mainconcept 1.4.2, convert realtime to mpeg 2 @ 1/2D1 with an average bitrate of 2600 (good results for typical shows, if lot's of motion I would use 3000 at most).
Burn mpeg 2 to DVD-Rs or DVD-RWs. OR: I would buy a HD about 120GB (or more) and store them there mpeg 2

Then, when I would have time, with womble mpeg2vcr I would edit those mpeg 2 files, and put them on a new folder up to 4.30GB. Author / burn. End.

Mpeg2VCR does editing very fast and accurate. It edits mpeg 2s like virtualdub edits avis, and probably faster!

I do this years now (well, almost: I grabb direct DVB transmissions, store them on HD daily and once in a week I sit down to edit them with mpeg2vcr ...).

[newbie04]

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep 'em coming!

What's the typical file size for an hour of mpeg2?

[gshelley61]

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep 'em coming!

What's the typical file size for an hour of mpeg2?

Depends on the average bitrate (encoding quality level) and whether it is a full D1 (720x480) or half D1 (352x780) resolution capture.

[newbie04]

Depends on the average bitrate (encoding quality level) and whether it is a full D1 (720x480) or half D1 (352x780) resolution capture.

Oops, I was referring to SatStorm's suggestion from above-

...convert realtime to mpeg 2 @ 1/2D1 with an average bitrate of 2600...

[SatStorm]

Use a bitrate calculator, there is no typical mpeg 2 filesize per hour. It depends of the bitrate you are using.

https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

3000kb/s is about 3 hours and 10 min per DVD-R (using 192kb mp2 audio). With 2700kb/s is about 3 hours 30 min, not bad and with good quality for a realtime mpeg 2 result from a software...