Best Hi8/Video8 archival method?
Hi,
I have a series of Hi8/Video8 home movie tapes ranging from 1990 to 2001. I am curious as to what the most long-lasting archival method would be. I notice some here work in Hollywood, even on film editing and such so I'm sure some of you could probably give me the best answers of just about anywhere. I already have VHS copies (done in the 1990s) and DVD copies of them, but I want what would be the best archival for long-term preservation and viewing. So, what route should I go? What route would offer: 1) The least image/data compression/pixellation from the original tape? 2) The longest lasting medium overall - a medium with say roughly 50 years lifespan before any image loss sets in? 3) The most easily transferable medium (IE - say in 100 years DVD players are of course extinct, the format most likely to be compatible with future technologies and thus the most easily transferable)? Also, say I have copies made of the existing DVDs, will there be any data/signal/image loss on the subsequent copies (and will copying the DVDs lower the data/signal of the original DVD?). By copies I mean literally just taking the Video_TS folder and copying it over onto multiple DVDs? What are good lossless, long-lasting and easily compatible digital formats I can have these films transferred to? Something that will basically capture the image on tape perfectly, and not suffer from any compression/pixellation the way DVD does? My ideal is to have these films outlive me in terms of being able to be viewed by descendants and such. |
Hi Ry,
First of all - I am very new to all of this, so I may not be the most qualified to answer your questions. However, I am an IT professional with many years of experience, so maybe I can help. 1) Chances are that you won't be able to see a noticeable difference in quality based upon your chosen format. Analog-to-digital conversion is going to lose quality no matter what. The difference in quality largely comes down to how much money you want to spend on the hardware to capture your videos. 2) Digital formats don't inherently lose quality over time. Just keep multiple copies of your digital files - preferably on different mediums - and your videos should last indefinitely. It's always worth following the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3) I think it's highly unlikely that any of the current popular video formats will ever really go away. Digital formats will remain around for many years/decades after their prime, simply out of necessity. Just pick a common format like MP4, MKV, etc. You will have more than enough time to convert them to something else if need be. |
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CD and Blu-ray are not archival. That leaves DVD for an optical format. Hard drives and magnetic tape get a bad reputation, but are generally no worse or better than optical media. In 50 years, the bigger question is this: what hardware can still read the media? For example, working Betamax players can be hard to come by, even if you have viable tapes. This will get worse for optical, as lasers have finite lifespans far less than 50 years. And good luck extracting data from the old magnetic data tapes and drives -- you often cannot easily extract anything from even 10 or 20 years ago. Try finding an ESDI interface (1980s hard drives) these days! Quote:
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Advantages of the digital format is as the available readers/display system change you can do lossless conversion from one digital form to another; e.g., from CD to DVD media, and to make new copies when you start to detect excessive read errors in the aging media (if you do periodic testing for it and make the new copy while the errors are still correctable). Because digital is sampling, its resolution is limited by the sample rate, (think bandwidth in analog signals). But that is generally not an issue given it was limited by the original image/audio acquisition device anyway. |
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