Peter
2011-07-09 18:19:52 UTC
I have about 50 DV tapes, dating back to 1991.
The earliest of those are actually ex Hi-8 tapes which I copied to DV
tapes, by linking a now-gone Hi-8 camcorder to a Sony PC-100.
Now I use a Sony HDR-HC1E which is great but is big and heavy.
Nowadays, DV tape is dead.
I am happy to keep the DV tapes in a safe because I know that high
coercivity magnetic media lasts for many years. Tape is still used for
serious data archiving in businesses. I use DDS4 at work and DLT at
home.
But no new camcorders record to DV, and anyway DV is a hassle for many
purposes where you want unattended recording because the tape fills up
after 1 hour, and the only way round that is to use the camera in a
"webcam" mode (or shop demo mode if you like) whereby one feeds its
composite audio output to e.g. a laptop where the data is recorded to
some piece of software which writes it to a hard disk. And for this to
work, mains power needs to be provided; if one uses the battery then
the camera shuts down after some minutes.
The best replacement for the HC1E appears to be one of these
http://www.parkcameras.com/18746/Sony-HDR-CX700-HD-Flash-Camcorder.html
but obviously it requires the data to be transferred out periodically,
and stored somewhere safe.
Then I need to transfer all those DV tapes to some new format, because
the HC1E will be sold on Ebay.
1) What is the simplest way to transfer the DV tapes to a PC,
losslessly, to some standard format? For PAL DV tapes it will be the
MJPEG DV format, and for the HD DV tapes it will be MPEG.
2) What is the best way to store the data afterwards? I do not believe
DVDs are the long term answer (20-30 years). Some may be OK but they
are unproven.
I store videos as they were taken, with no editing. To produce short
movies I have usee Pinnacle (buggy crap), P/Elements (buggy crap), and
now have Vegas 11 which seems to work. But it is the long term storage
I am interested in.
Maybe the best way will be to transfer (losslessly) the stuff to a PC
and back it up to my DLT tape and take that offsite.
Any suggestions appreciated :)
(I need to check that CX700 has MANUAL audio level control for the
external mike input, which I need for some applications like filming
in a light aircraft. The HC1E has this, and it is very rare in
consumer cams)
The earliest of those are actually ex Hi-8 tapes which I copied to DV
tapes, by linking a now-gone Hi-8 camcorder to a Sony PC-100.
Now I use a Sony HDR-HC1E which is great but is big and heavy.
Nowadays, DV tape is dead.
I am happy to keep the DV tapes in a safe because I know that high
coercivity magnetic media lasts for many years. Tape is still used for
serious data archiving in businesses. I use DDS4 at work and DLT at
home.
But no new camcorders record to DV, and anyway DV is a hassle for many
purposes where you want unattended recording because the tape fills up
after 1 hour, and the only way round that is to use the camera in a
"webcam" mode (or shop demo mode if you like) whereby one feeds its
composite audio output to e.g. a laptop where the data is recorded to
some piece of software which writes it to a hard disk. And for this to
work, mains power needs to be provided; if one uses the battery then
the camera shuts down after some minutes.
The best replacement for the HC1E appears to be one of these
http://www.parkcameras.com/18746/Sony-HDR-CX700-HD-Flash-Camcorder.html
but obviously it requires the data to be transferred out periodically,
and stored somewhere safe.
Then I need to transfer all those DV tapes to some new format, because
the HC1E will be sold on Ebay.
1) What is the simplest way to transfer the DV tapes to a PC,
losslessly, to some standard format? For PAL DV tapes it will be the
MJPEG DV format, and for the HD DV tapes it will be MPEG.
2) What is the best way to store the data afterwards? I do not believe
DVDs are the long term answer (20-30 years). Some may be OK but they
are unproven.
I store videos as they were taken, with no editing. To produce short
movies I have usee Pinnacle (buggy crap), P/Elements (buggy crap), and
now have Vegas 11 which seems to work. But it is the long term storage
I am interested in.
Maybe the best way will be to transfer (losslessly) the stuff to a PC
and back it up to my DLT tape and take that offsite.
Any suggestions appreciated :)
(I need to check that CX700 has MANUAL audio level control for the
external mike input, which I need for some applications like filming
in a light aircraft. The HC1E has this, and it is very rare in
consumer cams)