[Zoom]

I've got a handful of MiniDV tapes that I need to duplicate or otherwise archive. I've got at least 50 GB of hard drive space and a DVD burner. What's my best bet?

I could use iMovie to suck down all the video, but then what? What's my best bet for saving the raw footage? At bare minimum, I need to be able to edit it with iMovie and burn DVDs with it. However, if possible, I'd like to also be able to view the raw footage using a DVD player.

Each tape is 60 minutes. How much hard drive space would it take to suck down an entire tape? I'm assuming it won't fit on a DVD without being compressed, is that right? I could probably let iMovie import it all and tag the scene changes for me, then burn it to DVD... but then I couldn't go back and edit it, right?

What are my best options here?

I could duplicate the tapes: import to my hard drive and then upload to a new tape. That would be a perfect copy, right?

My camera is a Canon ZR60, if that matters. I have access to another camera, if necessary, but then there would be D/A and A/D, right? The other camera is an older JVC with Firewire.

[Mark E]

I could use iMovie to suck down all the video, but then what? What's my best bet for saving the raw footage? At bare minimum, I need to be able to edit it with iMovie and burn DVDs with it. However, if possible, I'd like to also be able to view the raw footage using a DVD player.

you'd be out of luck with regards to viewing the "raw footage" on your DVD player. the only format of video on DVD discs is MPEG-2 video. you can fit around two hours of very high quality MPEG-2 video on each DVD.

Each tape is 60 minutes. How much hard drive space would it take to suck down an entire tape? I'm assuming it won't fit on a DVD without being compressed, is that right?

DV is, on average, about 250 MB per minute. so you're looking at roughly 15 GB per hour of footage. you could, in theory, put a few minutes of raw DV footage on a DVD disc, just as a means of storage (much like a data CD-rom), but there isn't much point to it.

I could probably let iMovie import it all and tag the scene changes for me, then burn it to DVD... but then I couldn't go back and edit it, right?

all your editing must be made before you encode to MPEG-2. the only way to re-edit, after you've encoded to MPEG-2, would be to record your DVD player playing the disc back onto your camera, then re-import into iMovie, and encode to MPEG-2 again.

i'd advise against this though, as you'll lose quality doing it. it's the same as, say, editing an AIFF file, converting it to MP3, converting it back to AIFF to do more editing on it, then converting the finished work back to MP3. a lot of unnessecary compression.

I could duplicate the tapes: import to my hard drive and then upload to a new tape. That would be a perfect copy, right?

yes.

i'm a little confused here.. what exactly is it you want to do with the tapes? just make a duplicate? if so the easiest (and quickest) way would be to use your 2 DV cameras, connect them up with a firewire cable, and make a straight dub.

if you want to "archive" the tapes, then why not just keep the original DV tapes to one side? no better archiving than that, it's already done for you.

-Mark

[zigzag]

Yeah, what Mark says - just store your raw footage on the tapes. It's cheap, reliable, there's no data loss or compression, and it doesn't require any extra work.

Blank DVDs have gotten a little cheaper than DV tapes but not enough to justify all the extra effort, IMO. You can buy DV tapes for $4-5 each on the web or at Costco.

[Zoom]

The problem is that the person who owns the tapes isn't me. I have them in my possession now and I could borrow them again if needed to, but I want my own copies.

If I can dup from camera to camera over firewire, that probably would be best. But then I think that maybe I should just borrow them from time to time and edit them into movies.

So, if one MiniDV tape is 15Gb, I could store it to about 3.5 DVDs as raw data, right? When costs come down a bit, that might be economical, though MiniDV tapes aren't that expensive.

Thanks for the advice.

[Mark E]

Originally posted by Zoom:

So, if one MiniDV tape is 15Gb, I could store it to about 3.5 DVDs as raw data, right? When costs come down a bit, that might be economical, though MiniDV tapes aren't that expensive.

yes, you could, but it's not really worth it. i don't think imovie (or even the final cut programs, but i could be wrong there) is capable of just "opening" files from another source, they have to be imported in.

it's a lot easier to just keep the material on the tapes, especially when you can pick up blank miniDV tapes for under $5.

http://www.tapeandmedia.com/mini_dv_tape.asp

happy to help.

-Mark

[Aku]

You might want to try DVDxDV, it's freeware you can find at a mac d/l site. It supposedly lets you take a dvd burned with iMovie and turn it back into DV so that you can re-edit it. I haven't tried it yet because you need X10.2

Supposedly DV tapes are lossless, but I've found they don't hold up so well. The magnetic tape gets crumpled very easily if the camera gets bumped around a bit with the tape in it.

[tooki]

I'd duplicate the tapes using a FireWire cable.

tooki

[dampeoples]

What about something like this? It's supposed to be lossless. I assume there would still be the problem of capture though