Archived video and MPEG2 deterioration

[Oceanic79]

I am new to this site and have learned a great deal by reading many of your questions and posts. Now its time for me to write my first one.

I have been struggling back and forth on how to archive all my 8mm & Hi8 tapes. The earliest ones I have are from 1990 and they are starting to break down. I have resisted taking all the tapes and making regular DVDs because I cannot extract certain video clips at a future date. The regular DVDs are created using VOB files and these files are very difficult to extract at a later date. I have tried extracting from some DVDs and the sound is out of sync with the people's voices. To date I don't think there is any way to do this. So taking this into consideration I have chosen to save all my video files as data so I can extract video clips in the future.

What I do is set up my old Cannon ES84000V analog camcorder to my digital Sony TVR-33. Then I use a fire wire to get the video into the computer. I capture using Studio 8. I capture using the DV mode (the highest quality). I even use this on the 8mm tapes as the guys on the Studio help line said its best to bring it in at the highest quality. After the 2 hours of video has been captured I have a tremendous file on my computer. The size is over 20plus G

It is at this point that I do nothing. I get paralyzed and I'm probably over analyzing the situation.

The points I am struggling with.

I want to save my video as a MPEG2 file on a DVD as data. I can probably save 1 hour @ 9000 Kbits or 2 hours @ 5500 Kbits. My problem is that if I save the 8mm video as a MPEG2 and them retrieve it for a future project there will be degradation in the quality of the video. I am asking the board form your experience how much does a MPEG2 video file break down. Does this sound like a good idea or not.

I have thought about some other plans such as; transferring the old video to new digital tapes or transferring and saving the old video on multiple disks. I would save them as AVI files. Each of the other methods require many disks or tapes and each time I think of going that way I go back to the MPEG2 idea and do nothing. It’s very frustrating.

I am asking the board for their input on the matter. Again the main questions are

1. How much does an archived MPEG2 file deteriorate when retrieved for a future job. Would the breakdown be very noticeable with 8mm video? Is there a way to do this while reducing the breakdown? For example what Kbits should be used? I know you could use the max but would that be overkill for a 8mm video?


2. Speaking of overkill, is it overkill to capture 8mm video as a DV or would it be better to capture it as a MPEG2 file.


3. If the MPEG2 avenue is not the way to go then what is the best way to archive old
8mm video.


Thanks

[holistic]

Reading that made my brain hurt ...... as i went through a similar thought process years ago.

I initially started out doing my VHS in 20 minute MPEG2 "blocks" on 700mb CD's.

Now I am doing similar to your way of thinking Hi8 A/D passthrough converted to ~ 1 hour (or 4Gb ish) MPEG2 clips. The video is then burned to DVD as one file in UDF 1.02 for maximum compatability (at the time i began this venture).
The resulting DV is then edited (simple cuts in VirtualDub) for the best 'footage' and archived to 120Gb drives using Virtual Dubs 'Direct stream copy' Mode (video & audio).

What i now have is : original Hi8 (stored safely) , Select DV video on harddrives and 99% of original on DVD in MPEG2 @ 8500 video and 320 audio.

note : the mpeg2 on the DVD's has had transitions, titles and the like applied to it for future transfer (authoring) to a new medium.

All your questions are not answered but this may set you on a path. It works for me ,but perhaps you will find a better method for yourself.


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[akbor75]

if you don't have to edit the movies later you can save them to dvd as mpeg. ofcourse you can still add menus and stuff without reencoding.

if you want to edit the movies with music, transitions etc. i suggest doing so before you write it to dvd. this will take longer, but result in better quality, as you know.

but i think if you use a high bitrate (8000 kbps) it's still good after reencoding once. but to be sure you'll have to test that.

[CrustyCurmudgeon]

My experience with backing up tapes digitally is it's not worth the effort to use more than 3000kbps. The tape video quality seldom anywhere near that good at best. Most tapes do fine at 2000kbps. You can get better quality below 2000kbps if you use mpeg4 instead of mpeg2. I've used Nero Recode to do that with excellent results at 500kbps.

[rgs_uk]

I am looking into this myself. As you say, the life of the metal based tapes is limited. I think Sony refused to guarantee a life of more than 10-15 years? I think it will be pretty difficult to get players for 8mm just a year or two from now. As an example of how easy it is to wind up with material that you can't view properly... My camcorder broke down, I bought a new one but found it wouldn't play the few long-play recordings I have (no long-play facility doh!).

If you don't want to play the DVDs in a DVD player then there's no reason why you shouldn't go above the 9800kbits/sec maximum. I'm not sure what the upper limits are for the various profiles. But personally I think about an hour on a DVD is OK (less than 9800kbits).

Encoding with Iframes only is supposed to make editing MPEG2 more easy. I think closed GOPS too...? This will probably improve your chances of smooth edits in Womble MPEG VCR and similar. But I am finding it hard to get this info.

The problem is, by choosing IFrames only etc. you are actually reducing the image quality a bit too for any given bitrate. So it depends whether, in the future you want to edit the actual MPEG2 or import it into one of the modified versions of VirtualDub and save as something else (or reencode it). In the latter case, standard MPEG2 will be best quality.

The major problem longterm is likely to be the DVD discs themselves. Who knows how long they will last. Definitely a good idea to have more than one copy of each DVD and on a different brand. Also copies on more than one media type in my opinion: I have made back-ups of all my 8mm tapes on VHS. Not the best quality, but very widespread and VHS players will probably be around for at least another 5-10 years.

It is just a case of storing under good conditions, checking and 'migrating' your material to another media type every few years. They say digital means no loss of quality, but of course MPEG2 is lossy and who is to say what format you may want the tapes in, ten years from now...? It is a problem...