What is the best way to archive old family tapes wirthout lo

[Nikos]

I know making DVDS from old family tapes is about 95% quality of the original and ripping old camcorder tapes onto miniDV tapes is absoltely no quality loss......

So my question is what is the best overall way to archive old family tapes so there is no quality loss and they dont use quality when you play them like VHS....?

If DVD and miniDV can make almost exact copies, then why do people keep making VCDS???

I guess its a matter of preference, so with that being said what is the best way to archive old 8mm, digital, vhs family tapes?? mini DV or DVD??

[xboy]

If you've enough money, you should archive it on DVD.

The people still make VCDs because DVD is too expensive for the most people. SVCD is a high-quality and very cheap way to archive your videos.

[Greg12]

vcd provides the maximun amount of space on a cd.

it is vhs quality. some ppl say better. a 700meg cd holds about 80 minutes.

svcd is near dvd quality, but it takes more space. a 700meg cd holds about 45 minutes.

mini-dvd is dvd quality mpeg 2 with menus and chapters. few dvd players can play with because of the fact that the laser is seeing a dvd file structure but it's also seeing a cd identification.

if you can aford it, buy a dvd burner.

if you dont' care about playback on a dvd player and will just play on a computer, try divx mpeg 4.

it's a really good codec.