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  1. I have 40 home video tapes(8MM and digital8). I'm new at this and I'm not sure if this is practical, but I would like to copy(capture) all of these tapes onto another format (dvd?) so I can store the tapes away for safekeeping, and only use the copies of these video clips as the source for future video/dvd projects. If possible, years from now I don't want to be concerned about the condition of the original tapes and camcorder.

    I'm trying to determine a way to maintain the best quality, and flexability for creating future dvds from these copied home video clips. For example, maybe 5 years from now, I want to create a biographical family dvd where I need to combine clips from various time periods.

    I considered getting a very large computer disk drive, which provides flexibility but is not a good long term storage solution. I'm considering burning all of this unedited video onto DVDs, but am not very experienced about this. I've successfully burned a few test dvd's using MS Moviemaker2, TMPGEng, and Ulead MovieFactory2, but haven't figured out how to pull the selected clips off the dvd back into the pc.

    Is there best way to burn video clips to dvds that will make it easier to copy the clips back into the computer at a later date for use in new dvds. Will there be a loss in video quality? Any other ideas and advice about this is appreciated.
    Thanks, Rich
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  2. Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
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    I suggest your read the newbie guides, because the answer to all of your questions is yes. To be able to keep your video to be able to edit it later, your may want to invest in a DVD-R and a capture card.

    You can then store all the raw, unedited video you capture from you tapes and store them onto the DVD-R disks. When you decide how you want them be shown (VCD, SVCD, DVD) you will still have all the raw video available with only one generation loss of quality. And if you like DVD, you can also make DVDs with your DVD-R.
    Hello.
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  3. Thanks for taking time to reply. I have a dvd-r and capture card and have already burned test dvds with MovieFactory2 and Sonic MyDvd and Pinnacle Studio7. Now I'm trying to get suggestions on what's the best/easiest way to pull selected clips back off the dvds.

    I'll review the how-to's again, but I haven't located much recommendation info there (guides mainly tell how to do things, not which way is better for this specific objective). Thanks again.
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  4. DVD Moviefactory 2 can pull video out of the VOB files of a DVD you created. I think the option is called something like "Insert from a DVD".

    If you are looking to save Video files for later use then you could just write the MPEG2 files to DVD-RW as data rather than actually authoring DVDs. But the minute you convert your original AVI into MPEG, you have lost some quality.
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  5. I like the idea of the using dvd-rw to keep the original AVI files for best quality, and flexibility of selecting clips, etc. I can easily move the selected avi files back onto the hard drive as required. I realize I'll need alot of dvd-rw for all these tapes.

    I haven't yet figured out how to get my Cendyne 105 to work with dvd-rw, but haven't spent much time checking into it. That may be a topic for another post. Thanks.
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  6. Actually.. storing your video on DVD is NOT a very good idea if you plan on editing in the future. Mpeg2 is not a very editable format, and can cause a lot of problems if you plan on doing any kind of effects on your video (color correction etc).
    The best bet as far as quality, price, and shelf life is still dv tape. If your sole purpose is to save these for 5 years, and then edit, storing on dvd is not the best choice. Unless, however, you store the video as an avi (make a data dvd disc), and leave it as you captured from the camera. The problem w/ that though, is you will only be able to store about 30-40 mins of DV AVI on one 4.7gb dvd.
    I hope that helps
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  7. Thanks. It seems like a good compromise plan for me would be to do some basic editing during capture to eliminate much of the obvious garbage video, and save the rest as dv-avi files on dvd-rw. I bet at least half of the stuff of my tapes is not worth capturing. This should greatly reduce the storage requirements without reducing the overall quality or reducing my flexability in creating edited dvds in the future. Obviously I'll keep the original tapes, but I can keep them packed away.
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