Creating long lasting backups of miniDV content ?

[paspar2]

Have around 15+ miniDV tapes ranging in age from 7 years and younger that I want to preserve.

I already edited the footage to 2 DVDs but those cut a lot of stuff out and I want to have access to the original footage even when miniDV is gone the way of VHS/BETA/HI8 etc...

Right now, it all on a single external hard drive that isnt used unless I need to access the video on it. HD's fail all the time and I want to be more carefull...

Whats the recommended way to make sure the content is backed up properly?

Im not a pro.. this is family video.

thanks!

[aussieskier]

Personally, I would make duplicate copies of each onto miniDV and then, make a third copy onto an External HD. I would store the second copy of tapes and the ext HD offsite.

Tape has a darn good track record of longevity, not perfect, but nothing is. Using a Hard Drive is a good hedge for readability over time.

Of course, you could always burn them to Blu-Ray data discs, but who know about the longevity of such things.

I should note that the backup process I described is basically what I used when I digitized 20 years worth of VHS and Hi-8 video and 3 years of mini-DV

[paspar2]

My concern is that 10 years from now, minidv players would be hard to find. just like hi8 players now...

[Matthew Craggs]

I would go with two hard drives, myself. Fifteen tapes at sixty minutes each would be about 200gb in the DV codec. Is it even possible to buy drives that small anymore?

Unfortunately, DVD isn't feasible, unless you encode the tapes to MPEG2 format and I would recommend not compressing them. You never know, you may want to edit them again in the future.

If you do want to do DVD, though, you should consider just using a settop DVD recorder, running the DV camera into the recorder, and doing it in realtime. A lot easier than capturing, rendering, and burning on the computer.

On a side note, I sold my old Digital8 camera almost a year ago. I got a lot more than it was worth for that reason alone: people want to play back their old tapes and don't have anything to do it with. I wish I could sell my MiniDV camcorders and still cameras for half of what I paid for them six years ago. :)

[paspar2]

I was thinking of backing up the AVIs to dvd (as data not as mpeg2 video) but after creating a 14gb file from the 1st tape - I decided against it since it would require 3 or 4 DVD's

[aussieskier]

It all really comes down to how much redundancy you want to in your backups.

Perhaps a better option is simply two external HDs each filled with copies of the avi files you have captured from the tapes. Storing one offsite.

Create a MD5 checksum, or better yet a Par2 file setup, for each avi file

Every couple of months you should attach the externals and check the checksums of every file to make sure the data is still intact.

If you want an additional level of security, you could compress the dv files to something like higher bitrate AVC and burn those to DVD. These would remain editable and, while technically representing a degradation in quality, it is no different (perhaps even better) than when you compress to watch via dvd player. As a last line of defense, for me at least, a minuscule hit in quality is better than no video at all :).

[paspar2]

Riley,

i just ordered 2 640gb eternal drives on buy.com to do just that. good idea with the md5 (will google the par2)

whats an AVC?

thanks for your suggestions.

[aussieskier]

Par2 creates a set of files with information to rebuild a set of files up to a percentage you set (I use about 10%) should those files become corrupt in someway. I do this for data archives onto optical disks.

Those files also act as a checksum file so you can check them every year or so to make sure they are still intact. If some corruption occurs, the par files enable you to repair, and reburn the files to fresh media.

It could be a step of overkill for you, it just depends on the importance of the files.

AVC is Advanced Video Codec, part of the Mpeg 4 standard. something like h.264 (often used in quicktime) or x264 (an open source AVC encoder). This, again, could be overkill as even on high end computers it can take a significant amount of time to encode each file. If you decide that you want this extra layer, PM me and I can help you further.

[Severechase]

I back up all my Mini DV footage three times. I keep a hard copy by keeping the Mini DV stored, and then I back the footage up twice on 2 different Hard Drives, keeps getting easier and easier to do with the now 2+ tb hard drives...