DV to DVD for backup :)

[Leighbee]

hi all,
I'm sure my questions have been answered time and again on this and

many other forums, but as a mother of 3 children (4 and under) I don't

have the luxury of research time as I'd like - sorry

What I would like to do is save my raw DV (from DV tapes) to DVDs for

future editing and to be the new original. I am not planning to continue

buying more DV tapes (cost) and need to erase the 7 I have used.


Question 1: (which I just thought of) How many times can a DV tape be

used after erasing each time? Will quality suffer after first use?


Question 2: What is the easiest way to make these new originals? I have

tried already using something in Nero 6 but the files ended up being to

large to fit on a DVD (about 12 GB each! for 1 hour DV - in avi.).

I don't think my husband will go for buying some expensive software to

do any of this so I will need to use my Nero or some other Freeware....


Question 3: I needed to make a copy of some footage for a relative so I

edited and made a DVD of what he requested using something in Nero. I

made it 2 times using different formats I think avi and mpg2.... if I

remember correctly, all seemed fine until I viewed in a media player. then

it looked choppy and not so good. I don't remember if it was one or both

of the versions. What might have caused that?


Question 4: Why is all of this such a confusing and seemingly complex

task? Why couldn't the smart scientists and format makers have made

this a simple task like the old analog music and video tape editing and

copying used to be? This is driving me crazy. I guess you may tell me

that the quality is so much better because the current format is much

more complex and larger in size which presents a storage problem. Raw

video just takes up too much space, eh? All the stuff about

compression, coding and recoding, etc is so confusing to a newbie like

me. Why do we have to learn all that? I'm not an idiot around computers

but I learn as I go. This seems like it has a big learning curve......


thanks in advance for any comments and/or help. You people are a great

comfort to a newbie, and I think it's so nice that you take the time to help

us/me.

Leigh

[wwjd]

Leighbee,

From experience I recommend that you DO NOT RE-USE your miniDV tapes. They ARE the orginals and are the BEST quality you can get.

There are many horror stories to be told where family video was transferred to DVD and the original source, in your case miniDV, were destroyed or reused, only to find out sometime later that some number of the DVDs only partially worked or even worse they corroded and all was lost.

I have been doing this for about 4 years now. I started out by transferring family video to DVD. Over the last few months I been copying these DVDs to my HDD. About 25% or more of the DVDs I burned either do not play at all or they have problems with playing certain parts. I am really glad I kept the originals. My story is all too common.

If you do burn to DVD, whether you keep the original or not, burn at least 2 copies of each DVD. In some cases 2 of the three copies I burned were corrupt or would not work. With learning and research you should be able to reduce the number of potentially bad DVDs.

Thats my 2cents worth!

MiniDV tapes are really not that expensive, $4-5 In years to come you will be glad that you kept them as originals.

[daamon]

Hi Leighbee,

Welcome to the forums.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1107545#1107545

This old post of mine will be useful. There's a link at the bottom of my post that goes on to more info that is quite detailed and tries to explain stuff in layman's terms, but without being too vague either.

You will need to decide what tools you're gonna use and then learn how to use them. But there's plenty of guides and help in the forums. However, the principals will pretty much be the same.

As both posts are quite old, here's some more recent info:

* GSpot v2.52 beta is the one that works with MPEGs.
* Apparently (I've not used it) the hc MPEG2 encoder is good and free. I tried to take a look but had trouble downloading it.
* A good (free) editing tool is Avid Free DV - more versatile than VirtualDub.

I hope that helps. Good luck...

[MOVIEGEEK]

Leighbee,
There are some decent all-in-one programs such as Ulead VideoStudio 9 that will capture,edit,encode and burn.There are also some good freeware/shareware programs that you can use to transfer your video to DVD in the "Tools" section.Another option is to use a standalone recorder where you simply plug in your camcorder via firewire.
DV-AVI is ~13GB per hour and must be encoded to MPEG-2 to be used on DVD.Read some of the faqs and guides to the left then relax and enjoy the wonderful world of video.

[ZippyP.]

Q1. Dunno, I don't do DV.

Q2. You can copy your DV footage to DVD as data but it will only hold 20 minutes or so. Virtualdub (free) can cut up your footage, burn to disk with nero as data. You won't be able to play it on a DVD player but you will have an exact copy. Don't bother trying to convert your only copy of precious footage to DVD video, as you've already found out it's not easy for a novice.

Q3. Your problems could be one of many things: Poor settings, poor software, slow hardware etc. Without knowing the details of what you did exactly one can only guess.

Q4. Yes there is a learning curve, as with any hobby. You can make it as simple or as complex as you wish. If you start with one goal, say create a simple DVD from your footage, then go from there taking each step one at a time, then you can learn as you go. Don't try to learn it all in week, you can't.

Quite simply you are hindering yourself by saying that you won't buy any more software. Nero is good for burning and that's about it. You need software for editing and converting your material, as well as creating menus. This can be done with packaged software (all-in-one) but it will more likely (and with better quality) be done with several programs.

One step at a time, and keep your posts short and to the point. There's a large knowledge base here at this site that can be a great resource for you, you just need to approach in the right manner.

Good luck.

[ZippyP.]

Another option is to use a standalone recorder where you simply plug in your camcorder via firewire.

A good idea for someone that finds it all too overwhelming. They are cheap these days.