I have decided to purchase a new Mini DV camcorder (leaning toward the Panasonic GS-250) with one goal in mind to archive my existing and extensive library of Hi8 tapes. I have done enough research to know that the GS-250 does analog-digital conversion so I could also pass the analog signal directly through to my Mac for capturing. However, my first priority is to archive the tapes. A very general question to all of you experts out there is: Is there anything I am not considering in terms of the best approach to this project? My top priority is to archive the tapes at the highest possible quality. I know there are DVD camcorders out there, but I assume the format of the DVDs would produce a lower quality than Mini DV (and not hold as much video if the quality were the same), not to mention my concern about the longevity of DVD recordable media. In other words, I have a sense that Mini DV tapes, if stored properly, would be a better archive choice than DVDs, but I could be wrong on that count. Also, can anyone recommend a good brand/model of Mini DV tape for my project? I don't mind paying more for extra quality or life expectancy. Thanks in advance for your help!
Well MrKarst, you are on the right track. I always record my edited movies back to tape for archive. But, yes, tape deteriorates over time, but it will take some time. What I certainly would recommend is that you wind and rewind the tapes from time to time. If you ever have stored audio tape for a long time, you will have noticed that the music starts to echo on the tape, because the magnetic charge "radiates" through the winded tape if you know what I mean. More secure (and cheaper) is to store the video as DV-AVI as data on a DVD. Cut it into pieces of 20 minutes and put each piece on a single layer DVD (or 40 minutes on a dual layer) you can put it back together again in the future. But then again, I found that DVD's are also not always reliable, so maybe make a duplicate for each of them. A third option: buy an external 250 GB hard drive to store 20 hours. Your question about brand: I have used many different types of tape and never found any noticeable quality difference. I did have problems when using different brands on one camera, so to be sure make your choice for one brand and type and stick to it.
Thanks so much for your reply! Would the quality of the conversion be as good using DVDs (DV-AVI format) as it would be with Mini DV? As for the external hard drive, that's not a bad idea except that I have WAY more than 20 hours to archive. I am still interested if anyone else has an opinion on a particular brand/type of Mini DV media. Thanks again!
One you have digitized it as DV-AVI it's digital data and it will not change to whatever media you put it. On tape however, the digital data is stored by magnetization and the camcorder does allow some degradration and still give a reasonable picture.
