What format to temp store DV scenes ?

[NicholasA]

I am using pinnacle Studio 8.
Athlon 1700+, 80 gig HD
capturing old Hi8 tapes to DV format, by playing them in a Sony digital cam. I am editing and burning to DVD.

I am capturing a 2 hour tape in DV format editing out about 20%, then capturing more. The problem is I have about 15-45 minutes of footage that I need to save for use on Latter edits (My 8mm tapes jump from weddings, to baby, to air show, etc), I donot have room to save them on the HD in DV formatt, and a CD-r wont hold much in DV format.

1) since I am going to be burning to DVD for final product, should I save My misc footage as Highest quality Mpeg2 ?

2) Does Mpeg2 loose anything each time You compress and decompress?

any advice on how to temp store these "orphaned scenes" for latter use, without loosing quality.

Many thanks,
Nick

[Bondiablo]

I think your best option would be add a 2nd hard drive. Every time you encode you're going to lose some quality.

If you just need a little extra space temporarily you could compress them with something like winzip. You won't lose anything that way but you'll only reduce them about maybe 10%.

[NicholasA]

I had enough room on the drive to store the scenes and I kept them in DV format, so as not to lose quality, BUT when I saved the file it went through a long compiling process?

I captured in DV (from a DV cam corder), so why would the scenes have to be compiled agian to save a portion of them in DV ?

or is Pinnacle not editing in DV format , even though I captured to DV format ?

Many thanks,
Nick

[donpedro]

I beleive that only scenes that you modified are recompiled (added text, transitions, sloww motion....). Rest of video is just copied. That is what I think that is happening when I watch what Pinnacle Studio 7 is doing when I am saving AVI (DV) file.

[vhelp]

NicholasA,

>> had enough room on the drive to store the scenes and I kept them
>> in DV format, so as not to lose quality,
So sorry chap. DV is a compression. And as such, you DO loose some
quality, hence you WILL loose some quality, even if little.

The key here, is "later use" or when you get better at MPEG encoding
or buy DVD writer or combo..
You want to be able to edit what ever is left, by your prooning.

IMO, I'd just leave them on those Hi8 tapes or if on miniDV tapes,
leave footage on themm as well. Then, later you can do your edits
with as best quality from the source as possibly able.

Beleive it or not, you CAN leave footage on tapes. Just not for
20 years or something like that, AND, don't go playing them every
chance you get, as wear and tear and stretching from FF/RW'ng will
degrade them sooner. Just leave them alone in (optimum) storage
for later editing and finalization, ie, SVCD or DVD, etc.

IMO, if they are true priceless footage, then don't waist your time
trying to archive them into another format ie, DV or MPEG-2 and
then have to worry about quality later, "should've done.." "should've
that.." Basically, you aren't making optimum archivals if you have to
in another format ie, DV or MPEG-2 (no matter what high quality level
of values ie, bitrates, etc. that you throw at it)

Keep them on the tapes, unless you think you should be waiting for
20 or 30 years, or a 100 years, when they come out w/ Holograms or
some sci-fi technoledgy or whathaveyou.

And, I'd forget about that ZIPing. Do you know how long it would
take you to just Zip 1 gig ?? You don't wanna know
-vhelp

[snowmoon]

I would say too that the DV tapes are a good storage medium. If you don't have the HD space for the DV then just transfer it back to tape for later use.

[yg1968]

If you are worried about aging DV tapes. You can always transfer them to new tapes through your computer.

A few years down the road, I guess that we could be archiving DV on blu-ray disks (with a capacity 27gig or two hours of DV). Something to look forward to...

[vhelp]

yg1968,
>> A few years down the road, I guess that we could be archiving DV on
>> blu-ray disks (with a capacity 27gig or two hours of DV). Something to
>> look forward to...
Hurray! I'll look forward to this when it comes, and hopefully, it wont be
so p$r$i$c$y - but good suggestion too.

-vhelp

[donpedro]

So sorry chap. DV is a compression. And as such, you DO loose some quality, hence you WILL loose some quality, even if little.

Isn't video compressed and sored on tape allready in DV format ? (I don't know technical details behind DV camcorders.) If yes, where is "losse" if you store DV AVI files ?

OK... I think this is the part that I missed "capturing old Hi8 tapes to DV format"

[EricB]

Nicholas,

I am doing pretty much exactly what you are doing. By far the best option is to save back to tape. Even writing the file to disk in DV using Studio8 or Premiere takes forever. You can write your sequences out to DV with no delay (realtime) and recover them with no degradation for placing with the events they belong to.