On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 15:53:39 -0000, Anthony Watson wrote:

>> Digital8 itself has a questionable future as an Archival format.

>I tried the commonly recommended method of sending our video's back to
>camcorder tapes, but was unhappy with this approach for several reasons:
>
>1. Finding anything on the tape is fairly slow and difficult, especially if
>the movie you want is close to the end of the tape.

This is what a brief, hand-written tape log is for...;-)

>2. "Using" the movie meant having to "capture" the video back to the
>computer. Once I found it on the tape, I had to sit through the whole video
>again just so I could edit or convert the video on my computer.

?????????????????

>3. The D8 format I use is limited to Sony/Hitachi and may not be readily
>available 10 years from now.
>
>4. Sending video back to the camcorder meant even more wear and tear on the
>camcorder.

Hardly an issue...

>5. Tapes break, are prone to damage from magnetic fields, etc.

VERY rare... The "magnetic fields" thing is over-rated - it
is very difficult to erase DV signals (and I once mistakenly
placed a giant magnet [from a synchrotron] next to an
audio tape rack, with no apparent damage to the tapes - the
magnetic field must be very close to the tape surface to
have any effect. I have never heard of DV tape breaking...

>In general, I just wasn't happy with tapes as an archive method, whether it
>was Digital8 or MiniDV.

It is the one method that permits unchanged archiving on
cheap and durable media...

>> Until there is an accepted standard for DVD
>> you are really on shakey ground when you use DVD for ARCHIVING.

>I currently archive my video's to DVD-R disks as DV "data" files. I use the
>MainConcept DV codec, and save a copy of the codec on the DVD-R as well. It
>takes a few DVD's to hold what a single tape will hold, but the movies
>remain in computer form. I can quickly access any movie on the DVD.
>
>While the specific DVD-R format may not be around in 5-10 years, it will be
>a simple matter to copy the video data to whatever new computer storage
>format comes along in the future (and probably fit more on a single disk).

Likewise for tapes...

>I currently burn three copies of my home video's:
>
>1. A standard MPEG2 video DVD that can be played in our stand-alone DVD
>player.
>
>2. A data DVD that I can keep close to the computer in case I want to
>quickly access a movie.
>
>3. A backup data DVD that I keep in storage in case something happens to
>disk #2 (disk failure, fire, theft, etc.).
>
>Just my approach...

Yes. For me, it is two Mini-DV copies and one D-8...