How do you store your videos?

[kelemvor]

I have a Mini DV camcorder and a bunch of tapes. I don't ant to just keep buying more tapes and want to get a copy of the videos off for safe keeping. Just wondering what the best way to store them is.

These are just home videos of my daughter and vacations and things so nothing I'm ever going to edit into a production movie or anything like that...

First off, what is a safe number of times to reuse a MiniDV tape after getting off the files.
Once the files are off, is it best to just dump them to a DVD or two and save the raw files that way?

I know I have WinDV or something like that, is that the best program to use to get the movie off?
Is there a preferred format to save them in to retain the highest quality?

Anything else to know for offloading video from a tape so the tape can be reused or would you recommend just leaving them on the tapes and storing them somewhere as is?

Thanks,
--Mike

[aedipuss]

tape's cheap and about as safe as you can get. hard drives normally fail around 5 years out, and dvdr also has a limited lifspan, how long no one really knows but probably shorter than a miniDV tape.

if it's important, keep it on the tapes. you can always transfer a copy to a hard drive and make a dvd also. winDV to computer over firewire is fine.

[lordsmurf]

Actually, lifespan of a disc is likely to be much longer than a tape. It depends on various factors. All things even, the disc will outlive the tape.

[kelemvor]

The other thing with tapes is just like VHS, the more you watch the tape and use it the sooner it will wear out. I think what I'll probably do is get the movies onto a DVD but then just store the tapes somewhere in case something would happen to the DVD...

Seems like the best of both worlds to do it that way.

[wtsinnc]

I have a Sony Mini DV Handicam. Using the included Sony "Picture Motion Browser" software I transferred via USB the recorded material to HDD, then burned to DVD-R. You can also use iLink on many models but my computer doesn't have that capability. Everything in the process went smoothly and after transferring to DVD I used the tapes for another project which was subsequently also burned to disc and in both cases I have seen no loss of quality. When I bought the handicam I also purchased a four pack of tapes. Including the tape that came with the camera, I have two used, three new tapes and expect those five to last for at least another year.

Having worked for years with VHS, I don't trust the long-term reliability of any tape as tape is inherently more fragile than DVD. My advice is if the recorded material is important to you, transfer it to DVD asap. If the finished product is to your satisfaction, reuse the tapes as I have and be sure to record everything at SP speed.

I can't comment about the life expectancy of DVD-/+R media except that I have DVDs recorded via a Panasonic DVD recorder that are nearly seven years old and they play without incident. Buying high quality blank media and proper storage practices are key to longevity.

Good luck !

[retexan599]

This may sound a little trivial, but -- make sure that you label the 'long term' media well enough so that someone, say, 10 years from now, will be able to find and recognize the content. Old VHS tapes were bulky enough that they were relatively 'visible'; DVD discs are less visible (as I see it). Real easy for the discs to be lost in those old storage boxes in the back of the closet when you move house a few times, yes? At least the tape itself was (inherently) inside a plastic cassette cartridge which protects it somewhat.

I recently had the task of converting some unlabeled (or incorrectly labeled) VHS tapes to DVD; the first job was to ascertain what (if anything!) was really on the tape. And so it will be with your DVD's when the next generation of people wants to convert the DVD material to the next generation of storage 'media'. I make sure my DVD discs have descriptive labels, who made them, the dates they were burned, etc. Of course it is also fairly easy to include relevant descriptions within the video/menus/titles as burned which will help.

Just a thought....