archive DV VHSc Digital8

[wolfer]

Hi all

I need someones help PLS

I have transfered a bunch of DV and VHSc and digital8 video to my computer using a canopus ADVC-100 or direct from a DV camcorder.
all my video is 720 x 480 and in DVcodec
I have about 200gb of Video that I need to back up on to disk to free some badly needed HD space.

Is there anyway I can compress these AVI files (dvcodec) to a slightly smaller file without losing too much. Raw AVI's are too big, and at this point I'm willing to lose some quality for space. But I still want to be able to video edit these files down the road. What would be the best code?

Pls Help!!!!!

[edDV]

Hi all

I need someones help PLS

I have transfered a bunch of DV and VHSc and digital8 video to my computer using a canopus ADVC-100 or direct from a DV camcorder.
all my video is 720 x 480 and in DVcodec
I have about 200gb of Video that I need to back up on to disk to free some badly needed HD space.

Is there anyway I can compress these AVI files (dvcodec) to a slightly smaller file without losing too much. Raw AVI's are too big, and at this point I'm willing to lose some quality for space. But I still want to be able to video edit these files down the road. What would be the best code?

Pls Help!!!!!

It is all a tradeoff.

DV format compresses about 5x within the frame (similar to JPeg) but maintains individual fields for editing precision. Bitrate is ~25-30Mb/s

MPeg2 uses a combination of intraframe and interframe (motion) compression. At one extreme, MPeg can be encoded with all I frames and resemble DV, but bitrate would be similar for the same quality. As you add interframe compression, filesize can be reduced at the cost of field resolution. Only motion differences will be saved between I frames.

So your alternatives are

1. Save back to DV tape
2. Save to hard disk.
3. MPeg2 compress to hard disk or DVD. Use interlace DVD MPeg encoder settings.

You might want to save your best material back to tape.

[irongang]

To back up my AVI files I archive them using WinRAR to split them into DVD-R size chunks. I don't bother with compression because the little bit of space saved isn't worth the time the compression takes. Just set the compression method to 'Store' and split to volumes. Then you can burn these to disc. 200 GB of data is about 46 discs, which only cost ~$20. I figure it's worth the $.40 per disc to save the AVIs.

[wolfer]

Since I'm still kind of new to all this.

So what you’re saying about backing up to tape.

If I have a DV tape and capture to my HD and then save back to the tape without editing. Isn’t it going to be the same quality as the original? It almost seems pointless to capture to HD if they are the same.
What I am wondering is if I would lose quality as a VHS over time with a DV tape. I think not since it’s a Digital Video tape right?.

What about VHSc or Digital 8. I would assume VHSc is analog and it would be wise to copy to a HD and backup on a Digital tape or HD or DVD. Would the same be true for Digital 8 as DV?

But for me, I would like to be able to put a 5-9gb 30min video to DVD-R for future editing in the best possible format. I don’t want to pull out the tapes and recapture from tape every time I want a clip. It would be nice just to pop in the DVD-r and import the file and seek to the area I want to use in a clip.

[edDV]

Since I'm still kind of new to all this.

So what you’re saying about backing up to tape.

If I have a DV tape and capture to my HD and then save back to the tape without editing. Isn’t it going to be the same quality as the original? It almost seems pointless to capture to HD if they are the same.
What I am wondering is if I would lose quality as a VHS over time with a DV tape. I think not since it’s a Digital Video tape right?.

I find that I can discard 25-50% of the DV camcorder shots on average. I cut those out then catalog and save the the archive clips back to tape.

Simple cut editing is a lossless process with DV format. DV tape will last a long time (10+years) and because it is digital, it won't be as subject to loss as analog recordings. I plan to backup my DV tapes to a future high capacity DVDR (like BluRay) in the future.

What about VHSc or Digital 8. I would assume VHSc is analog and it would be wise to copy to a HD and backup on a Digital tape or HD or DVD. Would the same be true for Digital 8 as DV?

Yes VHSC is a more fragile format while on VHS tape. If you back these to DV format, you could copy to DVDR as either DV or as playable MPeg2.

But for me, I would like to be able to put a 5-9gb 30min video to DVD-R for future editing in the best possible format. I don’t want to pull out the tapes and recapture from tape every time I want a clip. It would be nice just to pop in the DVD-r and import the file and seek to the area I want to use in a clip.

I do this for short clips. I edit out the clips and save each to a separate DV-AVI file. Then I copy them to DVDR. That makes clip loading easier than cueing tape.

[wolfer]

Thank-you all

this is making more sence.