advice on choosing a format

[broox]

Hi guys. I'll be starting a project soon and I would like some advice. Many many years ago me and my friends did a public access tv show in college. We shot on vhs. Flash forward to the future: my friend has all of the raw tapes for this show. I'm worried about them deteriorating and I would like to archive them. He lives far away but I should get be able to get the tapes from him for a month or two. This will be about twenty hours or so of footage. Now the question: what format should I capture these to that will be a good mix of file size and quality preservation? I'd love to have these things compressed as little as possible but I don't have a terabyte to work with. Also, I would like to have to option to edit these later so I would need a format that most video editors would accept. It doesn't matter to me if I capture directly to this format or convert from uncompressed, whatever's more effective.

Bottom line: what's a good archival quality format that will fit on dvdrs? Thanks in advance!

[Donny661]

My first thought would be to archive them as DVDs. The quality is great and you can watch them easily, but mpeg 2 is not a standard editing format and converting it later would not be nice.

Another option is backing them up on DV or miniDV tapes. The quality is great, and it is a standard editing format that will probably be supported for quite a few more years. But, I think you can only get an hour or so per miniDV tape and since you have about 20 hours of footage, that would probably get pretty expensive. Although, you can convert with just a VCR and a DV camcorder, which means you can skip out on any headaches that may arise by using a computer. You won't be able to use any software filters to clean up the video, but you should probably forgo those anyway for now because technology will advance and you will be able to make a better product when you finally decide to edit the footage then.

[daamon]

Hi broox,

You've a number of options, but no single one will (to my mind) suit all of your needs:

1. Capture each VHS tape to AVI using one of the following codecs (minimal compression):

DV AVI is approx. 13.5Gb per hour, there's also huffyuv and MJPEG - but I'm not familiar with these.

DV AVI (25Mbps) is predominantly the format that's commonly accepted by editors. Editors may accept other formats, but may end up re-encoding. Not sure, I've only ever worked with Adobe Premiere and DV AVI.

2. Record straight to DVD using a DVD recorder - less options for editing, but not impossible with tools like VideoReDo.

This is quicker, but may limit your editing. MPEG2 (up to 8 - 9Mbps) is a higher compression that DV AVI.

3. Capture the tapes to Divx or Xvid AVI. Loads of compression so you'll get more data files on a data DVD, but compression = loss of quality.

Not sure how well editors handle Divx or Xvid.

4. As Donny661 said, capture to (mini)DV tapes. You can use LP mode and get (around) 50% more time on what's stated on the tape (i.e. SP 60 mins = LP 90 mins).

The best way would be to record straight to tape in a DV cam from a decent (6 clean heads, good brand etc.) VCR.

DV tapes aren't that pricey and have the benefits already mentioned. I think that the longest SP tape is 80 mins, meaning you can (probably) get 2 hours per tape in LP mode.


If it were me, I'd got for option 4.

Whatever you decide, you have to remember that video, by it's very nature, has a lot of information and so filesizes will be big for decent quality or you'll lose quality to get more onto a disc. There's no way around it.

Good luck.

[broox]

So the consensus is to go directly to mini dv tape? I could do this, my friend has a vcr/mini dv combo deck at work. The only drawback to that is expense. I'm not sure I want to buy that many tapes. Is there a place to get a discount on 15-20 tapes if you buy them all at once? That will be a $100 easily, and to be quite honest this video isn't the highest of quality in the first place.

What about capturing them on the pc as dv type 1 (isn't that the mini dv codec?) and burning them to dvdrs (which I have plenty of already) as data files? I understand that I could probably only get about twenty minutes per disc that way. Are dv type 1 files smaller than huffyuv?

I'm intrigued by PICVideo M-JPEG. Does anyone know how difficult it would be to edit these files in Ulead or Avid?

[daamon]

Hi broox,

There is absolutely no reason why you can't do what you suggest - capture to DV AVI (type 1 or 2) on your PC. The downside you point out is correct, but if you're happy to do that then it's just a different storage medium.

You can use WinDV (free and very stable) to capture from a DV source. There's a setting for max number of frames per file. Work this out based on how much you can fit on a DVD as a data file and WinDV will capture continuously, writing to a new file every X frames.

I don't know huffyuv or PICVideo M-JPEG, sorry.

[gadgetguy]

Huffyuv is a lossless codec - excellent quality, but requires alot more storage than DV-AVI.

[Donny661]

. . . and to be quite honest this video isn't the highest of quality in the first place.

It may not be that good of quality, but you still want to treat it like is. Otherwise, you will just end up making it worse.

I'm intrigued by PICVideo M-JPEG. Does anyone know how difficult it would be to edit these files in Ulead or Avid?

As long as it is in the avi container and you can get the codec, you will probably be able to edit with it. A couple of years ago, when I was taking a AV class in high scholl, I think we used another proprietary motion-JPEG type compression with some MAC program we used for editing. Although, it was integrated with the editing program.

[ozymango]

This will be about twenty hours or so of footage. Now the question: what format should I capture these to that will be a good mix of file size and quality preservation? ... Also, I would like to have to option to edit these later so I would need a format that most video editors would accept. It doesn't matter to me if I capture directly to this format or convert from uncompressed, whatever's more effective.

Have fun with your project (I've done similiar things with home movies, from 8mm and S8mm film), great answers from everybody and one question that I have that I didn't see you mention -- do you currently have a video capture card to work with? Because if you already have one, there may or may not be some features and/or limitations with the card that may make one type of capture "better" for you in terms of quality.

And if you don't have a capture card, there's a whole 'nother dimension to this as then is it worth it to go for an mpeg2 capture card or an "avi" capture card, non-compressed. So many choices.

If the initial goal is simply preservation, I lean towards either a straight DV capture (split to a stack of DVDs, which you can get relatively cheaply) or to mini-DV tape. If your friend already has a vhs/dv deck, I'd strongly lean that way (assuming you don't already have another capture card or device) because whatever you spend on tape, you'd have to spend on a capture device anyway. So this would be relatively economical.

But this depends on how much editing you want to do, and how soon -- if it's just cutting out the dull parts, nothing too fancy, there are some very good mpeg editors out there (like womble mpeg video wizard) that are easy to use and quite powerful, with good results for simple edits, so storing these as mpeg might work quite well. But for more heavy-duty editing, it pays to keep things uncompressed.

I agree with those who mention that no matter what you think of the quality of the original tapes, treat 'em like gold and do what you can to preserve quality during all phases of the operation. So if the goal is primarily the archiving of the materials, I'd go for the least compressed option. You can always squeeze it later.

Good luck!

[broox]

I do have a capture card, it is an ati rage fury pro/xpert 2000. What I don't have is a superfast processor. I've got a pentium3 1.3 ghz with 256 mb ram. I've got a new laptop that's 2 point-something-or-another ghz 512 ram but I don't have a way to capture the video into it.

[broox]

By the way I really appreciate all the suggestions! With so many codecs and formats out there I'm sure this is an issue many people out there are tackling.