Which blank DVDs should I buy for archival quality ?

[ccjjff2]

I am new to transferring old home movies, super 8, reg 8, and VHS tapes to DVD. I guess I am very new to this. I thought putting these 20+ year old tapes onto a DVD would protect them for 30 or 40 years easy. Now it seems I need to carefully select a good “Archival” DVD – who knew. I had the super 8 and reg 8 films transferred using Costco source who put all on DVDs, which say “DVD archive quality DVD-R 8x”, but no brand names or details.

As for the VHS conversions, I have a 5 year old or so Sony VHS to DVD recorder which I have successfully converted a few VHS tapes to DVDs, but I simply went to Target and Best Buy and bought two 25 packs of Memorex DVD-R 16x 4.7GB 120 min discs and Sony DVD+R 16x 4.6GB 120 min discs, not noting or knowing the difference between +R and –R.

The DVD burner I have is what comes built in with my HP computer; HP 5000 series
s5623w; DVD Multi Recordable DVD R DL. I purchased 123 CopyDVDGold to copy the disc I make from my Sony VHS to DVD recorder, and burn a new DVD with my computer DVD burner.

So, what do I do in order to do this correctly?
- Which DVDs should I buy in order for these DVDs to last at least 20 years like the tapes have done?
- Should I use +R or –R and why?
- Now I see 8x on these “archival DVDs” and not 16x, which should I use again and what is the difference between 8x and 16x?
- Lastly, any suggestions on the equipment above I plan to use or the copying software?

Needless to say, I am a beginner, but I am willing to read and learn what I can to do it correctly from the start. I plan to make about 5 copies of all DVDs to pass them out to children and other family members. We have about 40 years of home movies. Thanks John

[volksjager]

1st off look in the blank media guide - the good Verbatim is the most recommended

using that Sony combo deck will result in very subpar quality.
none of those combo decks do a good job

you need a minimum of a good Super-VHS VCR , a standalone TBC and a LSI chipset DVD recorder and/or ATI capture card to do a decent job.

[thecoalman]

Get an external hard drive for archiving. Use the DVD's for backups of the hard drive. In the future move the video footage from the hard drive to the "latest and greatest".

My preferred format for capture is DV, if you have a mini-DV cam you may have all the hardware you need right under your nose.

[singemfrc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Get an external hard drive for archiving. Use the DVD's for backups of the hard drive. In the future move the video footage from the hard drive to the "latest and greatest".

My preferred format for capture is DV, if you have a mini-DV cam you may have all the hardware you need right under your nose.

Yep the best thing is to have everything in more than one place. Redundancy will save you.
Here are the DVDs you should get: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B0001LRIT4

I have my photo archive in three different places. The main copy is on my hard drive of my desktop, then I have an external HD as a main backup, and every once in a while I make another backup onto a large flash drive. If any one of them fails I have two other copies. Also like thecoalman said it's a very good idea to once in a while just transfer it to the latest and greatest and refresh the life of your media.

[jmac698]

No one's mentioned Maam Gold? http://www.mam-a-store.com/

It's used by archivists, these are the professionals.

I read a test of it's recording quality; it's not so great because of lower reflectivity, however the materials used in the disc are supposedly quite stable. Don't worry, it was still read with an acceptable error rate.

Don't use disc labels. Don't write on it with a ball-point pen. Avoid humidity. I believe you store flat.

It might be better to save as a file with some error checking. What this does is slightly increase the file size, but in the future if you can't read some blocks of data, the file can still be reconstructed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive can also RAR with recovery option.

[kpmedia]

There's nothing professional about MAM-A discs.

In fact, the quality of the discs is very low compared to authentic Taiyo Yuden or Mitsubishi Chemicals media. Do not use MAM-A media if you're seeking truly archival solutions. The dye on MAM-A discs is very crappy. Furthermore, the gold discs are harder to read than silver metal alloys. Gold is less reflective (in practice) at the wavelengths used by the DVD format, and lasers have a harder time picking up data. The media has consistently performed like junk in independent tests, run by reputable individuals, sites and groups online. (That includes this site.)

That's why nobody ever recommends MAM-A discs. The only people who call those discs archival are the people selling them.

Remember that "archival" is not an officially sanctioned term of any kind, so any goober company can slap an archival sticker on the side of their product. It's an unbacked claim.

[jmac698]

Actually I do agree, and that's what the one test I read said. The reflectivity is low and there's an increased error rate, however ,if the error rate is stable, it doesn't matter as long as there's no uncorrectable errors.

Based on the same data, I wouldn't conclude that it's awful just because it's *correctable* error rate is high. It's the uncorrectable rate I'm worried about.

The dye could be a killer issue, I just don't know offhand. Could you post some links to test reports?

And I asked an archivist about this, she said maam-a has been studied and recommended in her field. I naturally didn't believe her because archivists aren't necessarily that technical, where someone from an engineering background would test things more thoroughly. But convincing everyone of that could be tough without good links.

Quote:

tests conducted by Media Sciences, Inc. have shown that BLER alone is an unreliable indicator of failure

Hartke, J. "Recordables — CD-R Longevity Claims: Fact or Fiction?" MediaLine. August 2001. [Dead link as of 2011.10.22]
Hartke, J. "Measures of CD-R Longevity." Media Sciences, Inc. Posted 17 July 2001.
Hartke, J. "Why CD-Rs Fail." Media Sciences, Inc. October 2002.
Storage and Handling (store upgright)
http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.05/docs/disccare.html

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmac698

And I asked an archivist about this, she said maam-a has been studied and recommended in her field. I naturally didn't believe her because archivists aren't necessarily that technical, where someone from an engineering background would test things more thoroughly. But convincing everyone of that could be tough without good links.

A salesman is probably her source. That's always the case.

Understand that our media guide is used by government agencies (law enforcement, for example), and we've consulted with federal government archivists in the past.

Most of what I have is not "links" but actual documents from vetted offline sources. If you want online sources, search around Google for a bit, and you'll find countless posts where people have tested MAM-A with various methods, and found it to be a poor performer.

When it comes to MAM-A, you're just paying for the gold content, not the quality of disc itself.

The problem with MAM-A is two-fold. (1) The initial writes tend to be inferior, due to dye and lack of a quality write strategy**. (2) Deterioration combined with difficult reflectivity and a poor initial burn makes for a disc that likely won't make it to 30 years, much less 300 years.

** The common defense by MAM-A and their supporters is "just use a better drive, blah blah blah", but it's more than that. MAM-A has never consistently used the same strategy, unlike TY and Verbatim/Mitsubishi. At one point in time, MAM-A was faking media codes, which didn't help anything. Even with a proper strategy, you still have the dye and reflective layer to worry about.

There's a lot more to all of this, but I just don't have the time to explain it just yet. I have a fairly scathing anti-MAMA article written, but want to first communicate with MAM-A to get an official response. (They write to this site about once per year, unhappy that we've not proclaimed them to be the best disc ever. But unlike some sites, our information is based on facts and experience, not ad/affiliate bribes or "just because".) I'm in no rush to do it, as there are more pressing matters on adding site content.

The one thing that might be true is that the bonding on MAM-A discs may be better than average. But that really depends on the disc run. (The "batch" as some people say.) Bonding is important to longevity. If the glues dry and powder over time, all bets are off.

The biggest reason MAM-A sells is because people are still silly enough to think gold is always best. It's pretty for jewelry, but it's horrible for most audio/video use. The same is true of video cables -- gold sucks, while copper is better.

[singemfrc]

kpmedia is right. The Mitsubishi Verbatim media is not just merely the best..it's not even close. Admin put it to me like this, and it's funny but absolutely true - Verbatim is a choice cut of steak prepared by a master chef. Everything else is cat food. It smells edible, and you could eat it, but you'll probably puke as a result.

I've been using those discs exclusively since I found out where to get them and have found their quality to be absolutely impeccable. Also for the quality they're not that expensive..50 packs are $17 on Amazon.

[thecoalman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by singemfrc

If any one of them fails I have two other copies.

While on the topic are they all in the same location? I posted a video recently I want to clean up, it was on a hard drive, as I noted in my post recapture is not possible and the reason for that is it got toasted in a house fire. While I had a lot of material stored elsewhere for this particular video and many others I was pretty lucky because the hard drive was in the same house but unaffected.

[singemfrc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecoalman

While on the topic are they all in the same location? I posted a video recently I want to clean up, it was on a hard drive, as I noted in my post recapture is not possible and the reason for that is it got toasted in a house fire. While I had a lot of material stored elsewhere for this particular video and many others I was pretty lucky because the hard drive was in the same house but unaffected.

At the moment yes, which I realize is not the smartest thing. My main concern is media failure, but I really need to keep a copy in a fire safe in another room too.

[admin]

Not just another room -- useless against fires.
Or even another local building -- useless against floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, etc.

Most everybody has family in another location. Stuff a few hard drives full, and have a parent/sibling put them in a drawer.

[singemfrc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin

Not just another room -- useless against fires.
Or even another local building -- useless against floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, etc.

Most everybody has family in another location. Stuff a few hard drives full, and have a parent/sibling put them in a drawer.

Ideally yeah, but by another room in my case I meant near my bed in my bedroom. If I have to leave it's one of the first things I grab out the door (I live alone just in case you're thinking pets/family). So either I get it or I'm dead and it doesn't matter If you put it in a water tight fire safe you're extra insured against those issues.

[pepst]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia

The problem with MAM-A is two-fold.

Off topic - does anyone know if MAM-A actually produce any DVD-R media in their Colorado facility or if they are still just outsourcing all DVD-Rs and most CD-Rs from Moser Baer India?

[kpmedia]

Last I knew, it was at least MBI, with varying MIDs, though possibly also FTI in UAE (with TDK MIDs). It's been a while since I've even seen new-stock MAM-A discs. MAM-A used to be available at Microcenter and Fry's, but not any more. Several brands that carried MAM-A stopped doing so, and was replaced by even worse no-name crap. (UmeDisc, mostly.)

I don't think anything has been made at CSI (Colorado) in ages.

In fact, if you type "mam-a made in usa" into Google, it brings back dead pages (404s) and "out of stock" sales pages.

Not that anybody that cares about optical disc quality is shedding tears.