DV - what format is recommended for capturing and archiving

[btbt68]

I have a digital Sony using a DV cassette. I can transfer the recordings to the computer (by WindowsMovieMaker) at some forms:
1. Defalt choice: Mpeg1, which I realized is an average quality file.
2. DV-AVI: high quality but huge files.
3. Another more quality capturing (I don't know which)
4. Converting the raw DV-AVI format into DIVx.

If the high quality is important to me, but still I don't want to use too many gigas, nor do I want to keep the original DV,
what would you recommend?

[sitlet]

if you want hight quality, dv avi is the only way to go. anything else will be compressing the video, which will result in quality loss. if you are looking into storing them on your computer, i would suggest getting a bigger hard drive. a 160gb hard drive only runs about $100-150 these days. if you dont want to get a bigger hard drive, im afraid the only way to store them will be to compress them. it depends on how much you want to compress them vs. how much of a quality loss you are willing to go with.

[FulciLives]

When you "capture" DV video as DV AVI you really are not capturing but merely making an exact digital transfer of your A/V from the DV tape to the computer.

Thus DV AVI is the format you should capture in.

After that you can process it however you want.

For best quality in making a "back-up" try MPEG-2 DVD spec at a video bitrate of 7500kbps to 8000kbps with PCM WAV audio. That is about as good as you can get. That will also only fit about 60 minutes (or slightly more) on a single DVD but since most DV tapes are 60 minutes well there you go.

However MPEG-2 is meant as a viewing format. Not an archival format in the sense that you can use it as a "back-up" for later manipulation.

If you ever want to do any changes in the future like editing etc. then the best archive is to keep your original DV tape.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[btbt68]

The bottom line is that you don't recommend archiving in DivX?

[FulciLives]

The bottom line is that you don't recommend archiving in DivX?

That could work but quality will degrade though perhaps not by a noticeable amount.

I would keep the audio the same i.e., 16-bit 48k Stereo PCM WAV and for the video I would do a CBR encode at a very high bitrate maybe 4000kbps

You probably are better off just keeping the DV tape though. Remember that in the near future high capacity DVD formats are comming out. Your DV AVI from a single tape will then fit on a single DVD disc. That is near enough to happening that your DV tapes are not going to degrade while you wait.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[thor300]

The best way of archiving IMO is to keep the tapes, i do, but still never needed to dig up old tapes to reauthor. Probably never will, family and vacation/party videoes arent that cool to work with anyway. Tapes are not that expensive anyway. Got Digital8 camera, picked up some 60 min tapes for around $1.50 each in Philippines. Around $10 and up in Norway.