Thanks in advance for offering your help.
I am an amatuer video person (basically a parent) who uses VS9 and a consumer DV camera to take videos of kids musical events, sports, vacations, etc.. I make DVD's to send to relatives who want to watch this stuff but are getting too old to travel here to see it.
My question is this........I would like to save these files and watch them in 20-25 years (I am 49 years old). What format do you think would work best for archiving these files? I am not as interested in the actual quality of the eventual video, I just want to be able to watch them.
I realize that formats are likely to change, so I am interested in:
1. what format would most likely stil be available.
2. If the format is not being used in 20 years, which format would be easiset to convert. I don't want to have a pile of DVD's (think BETA tapes!) that are hardware dependent or a goofy software format that ends up being too much trouble to convert.
thans for your input
Mike
Long term video storage question
Moderator: Ken Berry
Hi Mike.
I'd say a lot of people are wondering this, me included. Nobody can guess which format will end up lasting the longest, but unlike Rip Van Winkle we won't suddenly find out in 20 years that -- oops! -- we were wrong! We can follow along as the changes occur, and adjust.
I'd strongly recommend saving the original materials. I save Hi8 tapes that have accumulated since 1987. At any moment I can capture one of these via my newer digicam and then record it back to D8 (Hi8) tape, now in digital format. That stuff is pretty stable (store them standing on their long edge). I'm not going to get rid of my D8 camcorder, which I use ONLY for capturing the old Hi8 tapes.
For family / friend consumption, I turn the less boring portions of the old tapes into DVDs. It's clear that DVD is going in the direction of hi-density or blu-ray, and pretty soon most people will be making dual-density home DVDs -- my own machine would do this, if I cared to spend $8 per disk. But I don't think single-density is going to disappear any time soon. I also doubt that, with the material in digital format, it will be any big problem to move old family scenes from current DVDs to some future format that might appear in a decade or two.
I'd say a lot of people are wondering this, me included. Nobody can guess which format will end up lasting the longest, but unlike Rip Van Winkle we won't suddenly find out in 20 years that -- oops! -- we were wrong! We can follow along as the changes occur, and adjust.
I'd strongly recommend saving the original materials. I save Hi8 tapes that have accumulated since 1987. At any moment I can capture one of these via my newer digicam and then record it back to D8 (Hi8) tape, now in digital format. That stuff is pretty stable (store them standing on their long edge). I'm not going to get rid of my D8 camcorder, which I use ONLY for capturing the old Hi8 tapes.
For family / friend consumption, I turn the less boring portions of the old tapes into DVDs. It's clear that DVD is going in the direction of hi-density or blu-ray, and pretty soon most people will be making dual-density home DVDs -- my own machine would do this, if I cared to spend $8 per disk. But I don't think single-density is going to disappear any time soon. I also doubt that, with the material in digital format, it will be any big problem to move old family scenes from current DVDs to some future format that might appear in a decade or two.
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PeterMilliken
- Posts: 264
- Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:03 pm
- Location: Sydney, Australia
Hi Mike,
I agree with Keith where he states that "We can follow along as the changes occur and adjust".
Personally, rather than archive to tape (especially prone to retrieval problems - what do you do if your old H8 camera goes belly up!), I archive all raw material (video files, project files, images, etc) to DVD using an archival program such as Norton Ghost. DVD's (single sided) are less than 0.50 each, so they are very cheap in terms of archival costs and much easier to retrieve later on i.e. if a DVD drive goes belly up then it is much easier (and cheaper!) to replace than a (possibly obsolete) camera.
So I would recommend archival to DVD using something like Norton Ghost or Image for Windows (shareware - so you can trial before you buy and the support is excellent
). This way you (should) have a much more reliable archival system and you can save more of the information i.e. archiving back to tape only captures the final product - it doesn't allow archiving of the actual computer files such as the project file etc etc.
Plus archival to DVD allows you to easily update your archives to newer media as technology happens along.
When I archive I don't bother archiving the output movie - I archive the raw input files, project file, images, DVD cover art etc etc, that way I can quickly rebuild, modify or add to at any later stage - a more flexible system in my opinion For example, I have faithfully used this system for some video footage of a friends child - every birthday etc I take more footage, restore all the files and add the new event to the project then burn a new DVD for them. By making the appropriate changes to the movie menu and DVD cover art, I am gradually growing a set of memories for them as their child grows
Hope this helps,
Peter
I agree with Keith where he states that "We can follow along as the changes occur and adjust".
Personally, rather than archive to tape (especially prone to retrieval problems - what do you do if your old H8 camera goes belly up!), I archive all raw material (video files, project files, images, etc) to DVD using an archival program such as Norton Ghost. DVD's (single sided) are less than 0.50 each, so they are very cheap in terms of archival costs and much easier to retrieve later on i.e. if a DVD drive goes belly up then it is much easier (and cheaper!) to replace than a (possibly obsolete) camera.
So I would recommend archival to DVD using something like Norton Ghost or Image for Windows (shareware - so you can trial before you buy and the support is excellent
). This way you (should) have a much more reliable archival system and you can save more of the information i.e. archiving back to tape only captures the final product - it doesn't allow archiving of the actual computer files such as the project file etc etc.Plus archival to DVD allows you to easily update your archives to newer media as technology happens along.
When I archive I don't bother archiving the output movie - I archive the raw input files, project file, images, DVD cover art etc etc, that way I can quickly rebuild, modify or add to at any later stage - a more flexible system in my opinion
For example, I have faithfully used this system for some video footage of a friends child - every birthday etc I take more footage, restore all the files and add the new event to the project then burn a new DVD for them. By making the appropriate changes to the movie menu and DVD cover art, I am gradually growing a set of memories for them as their child grows Hope this helps,
Peter
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maddrummer3301
- Posts: 2507
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
- Location: US
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maddrummer3301
- Posts: 2507
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
- Location: US
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maddrummer3301
- Posts: 2507
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
- Location: US
I will give you my experience and you can go from their. I recently took some of the old not sure if super 8 or 8 mil movies from the mid 60's no sound to a shop who I heard could convert. The person their told me they simply played them back on old equipment and their was someone out their who could convert most anything. They turned out great. I had asked that they put them on DVD. They told me for just a few more dollars less than 50 they could put them on Mini-DV tapes which would way outlast the DVD's. Hope this helps.
That is interesting. Makes you wonder.
Peter's method is pretty impressive and I do envy him the ease of retrieval. When DVDs hold more, I might go that route. DVD means MPEG2 format which is compressed, thus has lost something of the original. Keeping original tapes does really retain more.
However, analog tapes lose color vibrancy whereas in digital form this could not happen. Problem is, each Hi8 tape lasting 2 hours requires TWO identical tapes to contain the same data in digital format. Facing nearly 100 old analog tapes, I haven't done that yet.
Keith
Peter's method is pretty impressive and I do envy him the ease of retrieval. When DVDs hold more, I might go that route. DVD means MPEG2 format which is compressed, thus has lost something of the original. Keeping original tapes does really retain more.
However, analog tapes lose color vibrancy whereas in digital form this could not happen. Problem is, each Hi8 tape lasting 2 hours requires TWO identical tapes to contain the same data in digital format. Facing nearly 100 old analog tapes, I haven't done that yet.
Keith
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PeterMilliken
- Posts: 264
- Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:03 pm
- Location: Sydney, Australia
I archive the .avi files Keith - Norton Ghost and Image for Windows allow spanning large files (13GByte) across multiple storage media i.e. typically 2 - 3 DVDs (from memory) to archive a 1 Hr tape (they do on the fly compression - but not the type of compression that results in loss of video information!).
Using these programs is not quite straightforward though - they require you to organise your hard drives because they need to backup an entire disk or disk partition - so you have to finangle the storage of the files you want to archive so that they are the only files in the disk partition being archived. Retrieval is much simpler - you can either retrieve (and over write) the original disk partition in it's entirety or you can use an explorer type interface and just retrieve individual files from the archived media - handy at times. Especially if you split your original 13 GByte file into smaller individual clip files (I use "save clip as" a lot).
I would suggest giving it serious consideration to archiving to (H8) tape - I have had bad experiencing in the past with tape archival. I been around "computers" since the days when the standard at home was a bare PC board and you programmed in assembler - the storage media in those days for hobbyists was cassette tape! I remember backing up hours and hours of programs to cassette tape only to find one day that the recorder had been gradually failing - the tape speed was gradually getting slower and slower - not enough to notice between tapes but when I tried to retrieve earlier tapes the information was all saved at a speed that I couldn't sync to! I lost many hours of work, so I don't trust tape mechanism very much these days - even when they are in my camera.
Whilst DVD discs may present a possible problem sometime in the future (as their longevity isn't really known or guaranteed) you can at least perform regular checks of your archived material and if need be make a new copy very inexpensively if problems start to crop up! Something that would be extremely tedious (to the point of not doing) with tape as an archival system.
Peter
Using these programs is not quite straightforward though - they require you to organise your hard drives because they need to backup an entire disk or disk partition - so you have to finangle the storage of the files you want to archive so that they are the only files in the disk partition being archived. Retrieval is much simpler - you can either retrieve (and over write) the original disk partition in it's entirety or you can use an explorer type interface and just retrieve individual files from the archived media - handy at times. Especially if you split your original 13 GByte file into smaller individual clip files (I use "save clip as" a lot).
I would suggest giving it serious consideration to archiving to (H8) tape - I have had bad experiencing in the past with tape archival. I been around "computers" since the days when the standard at home was a bare PC board and you programmed in assembler - the storage media in those days for hobbyists was cassette tape! I remember backing up hours and hours of programs to cassette tape only to find one day that the recorder had been gradually failing - the tape speed was gradually getting slower and slower - not enough to notice between tapes but when I tried to retrieve earlier tapes the information was all saved at a speed that I couldn't sync to! I lost many hours of work, so I don't trust tape mechanism very much these days - even when they are in my camera.
Whilst DVD discs may present a possible problem sometime in the future (as their longevity isn't really known or guaranteed) you can at least perform regular checks of your archived material and if need be make a new copy very inexpensively if problems start to crop up! Something that would be extremely tedious (to the point of not doing) with tape as an archival system.
Peter
Just to add my .02 to Keith's comment, while digital recordings on tape do not show as easily as analog color fading, that doesn't mean the magnetic field remains constant.
All magnetic recordings are fading with time, the particles are turning back to median random alignment as regularly as radioactive material decays, only faster. To prevent that would render recording impossible.
True, the Error Correcting Codes will supply plausible data from the fading info for some time, then suddenly you will face a "Data error, can't recover" syndrome when the value gets below readable level.
Data preservation on digital media is also binary: like a Dura**** battery, it will last longer, then cut off abruptly. Perfect until gone.
IE you'll get more and more 'digital artefacts' in a short period until the tape quickly becomes totally unreadable. No one knows when.
Subject to temperature and humidity variations in the storage area.
In a more limited way, that also applies to CD/DVD-RW vs. CD/DVD-R technologies.
If you are able to rewrite it, it's also able to re-write itself with time.
The trade-off is simple: it's permanent or not. If YOU can change it, it's NOT permanent. Whatever the method.
Hard disks, RAM, screen phosphor, whatever. It decays spontaneously.
All magnetic recordings are fading with time, the particles are turning back to median random alignment as regularly as radioactive material decays, only faster. To prevent that would render recording impossible.
True, the Error Correcting Codes will supply plausible data from the fading info for some time, then suddenly you will face a "Data error, can't recover" syndrome when the value gets below readable level.
Data preservation on digital media is also binary: like a Dura**** battery, it will last longer, then cut off abruptly. Perfect until gone.
IE you'll get more and more 'digital artefacts' in a short period until the tape quickly becomes totally unreadable. No one knows when.
Subject to temperature and humidity variations in the storage area.
In a more limited way, that also applies to CD/DVD-RW vs. CD/DVD-R technologies.
If you are able to rewrite it, it's also able to re-write itself with time.
The trade-off is simple: it's permanent or not. If YOU can change it, it's NOT permanent. Whatever the method.
Hard disks, RAM, screen phosphor, whatever. It decays spontaneously.