best storage/archival option

[Guest]

Hi,

I am currently shooting quite a bit of video (new baby)--too much to compile and edit into individual movies at this point.

I'm interested in offloading the raw footage from the camera and storing it for future use. My plan is, whenever I have time to start making movies, to import the video back into Movie Maker or Ulead Video Studio for editing.

So, I bought a DVD burner. My question is, which is the more reasonable storage solution: use the Ulead DVD software to burn the raw footage onto the DVD (presumably using MPEG-2 compression), or to store the video as .WMV data files on data DVD's? I'm assuming that the DV-AVI format is out because one hour of video would span four data DVD's and that's not really practical. Also, keeping the video on my harddrive is also impractical because I have too much.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Glenn

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

If you must compress
===============
I'm sure you know that if you compress you loose a small amount of quality.
Going for WMV would be my option if I am going to edit in Movie Maker

Otherwise
=======
(UK Speak) pound per Gigabyteon on an additional hard drive is the best/most
convenient medium. 160GB drives that are fairly fast can be bought for less
than £160...a £ per Gigabyte. This is my chosen method. On my server I have an
80GB C drive a 40GB D drive and E & F are each 160GB drives.

Buying the DV tapes is cheaper, but if you get them mixed up you could lose
data and/or spend ages looking for the right tape.

Burning to DVD disks is time consuming and as you mention...you need several to
store just one full tape. Having for a time tried it...I would not want to go
back to doing it that way

 

[Rich]

If you compress the files there will be some lost quality. MPEG-2 tends to
be more difficult to edit if not impossible with Movie Maker. Loss of
quality with MPEG encoders will vary from different encoders and what
settings they are at.

The method I use is I transfer from camcorder to PC, do quick editing to
clip out the obvious bad shots, save as .AVI clips and transfer back to DV
tape. This gives me at least two archive copies. I keep a log on what's on
each tape. I usually only work on one video at a time. When it's finished
I make whatever number of DVD's I need and go on to the next tape.

Rich

Hi,

I am currently shooting quite a bit of video (new baby)--too much to

compile and edit into individual movies at this point.

I'm interested in offloading the raw footage from the camera and storing

it for future use. My plan is, whenever I have time to start making movies,
to import the video back into Movie Maker or Ulead Video Studio for editing.

So, I bought a DVD burner. My question is, which is the more reasonable

storage solution: use the Ulead DVD software to burn the raw footage onto
the DVD (presumably using MPEG-2 compression), or to store the video as .WMV
data files on data DVD's? I'm assuming that the DV-AVI format is out because
one hour of video would span four data DVD's and that's not really
practical. Also, keeping the video on my harddrive is also impractical
because I have too much.

 

[steve]

Glenn,

It depends what quality you want down the road. As soon as
you go away from DV-AVI you will lose quality. I bought a
second hard drive (200GB) just for storing the video. I
put a Western Digital 200GB drive in for $119 w rebate at
Circuit City. I think its still on sale.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
Hi,

I am currently shooting quite a bit of video (new baby)--

too much to compile and edit into individual movies at
this point.

I'm interested in offloading the raw footage from the

camera and storing it for future use. My plan is, whenever
I have time to start making movies, to import the video
back into Movie Maker or Ulead Video Studio for editing.

So, I bought a DVD burner. My question is, which is the

more reasonable storage solution: use the Ulead DVD
software to burn the raw footage onto the DVD (presumably
using MPEG-2 compression), or to store the video as .WMV
data files on data DVD's? I'm assuming that the DV-AVI
format is out because one hour of video would span four
data DVD's and that's not really practical. Also, keeping
the video on my harddrive is also impractical because I
have too much.

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

It depends what quality you want down the road. As soon as
you go away from DV-AVI you will lose quality. I bought a
second hard drive (200GB) just for storing the video. I
put a Western Digital 200GB drive in for $119 w rebate at
Circuit City. I think its still on sale.

My Goodness!!! I must get my youngest to go get one for me...at that price how
could you say no? Damn site better deal than we get in the UK.