[Hidden-tech] Video Codecs for long-term storage

[Will Loving]

Hi Jan,

We're talking about a public school here with a limited tech budget. Right
now a dozen or two DL DVDs (for this year), which I already have and can
donate, is cheaper than several hundred $ for multiple HDs (or a RAID) which
the school would need to purchase.

Yes, in the long-term a NAS device like the Drobo FS that I just bought for
my own use, will be the preferred option, but for now we're working with
what we have.

Will

Will Loving, President
Dedication Technologies, Inc.


on 9/17/10 9:26 PM, Jan Werner at jwerner at jwdp.com wrote:

> Why do you want to use DVR-DL for long term storage in the first place?
> 
> 2TB hard disks currently sell for $100-$120 and hold as much data as
> about 240 DVD-DL discs. Good quality DVD-DL discs (Verbatim) cost at
> least $1 each, so even with zero coasters, they are at least twice as
> expensive per GB as hard disks, and a lot more hassle to burn and keep
> track of. 1TB hard drives are not quite as cheap per GB, but still much
> less costly than DVD-DL.
> 
> Far better to keep duplicate copies of each video on multiple hard disks
> and, to be extra safe, include PAR2 files with each video file,
> 
> Jan Werner
> ___________
> 
> 
> Will Loving wrote:
>>     ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>     ** If you did, we all thank you.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Here¹s a question for the video mavens out there. My son goes to PVPA
>> (Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School) and starting last
>> year, we began video recording some of the performances. We would like,
>> eventually, to establish a viewing archive in the library of past
>> performances at the school and are trying to think about short term and
>> long-term storage and video formats.
>> 
>> There are two main issues, viewing and storage.
>> 
>> Most of the video we are shooting at the moment is in AVCHD format,
>> which for a performance under two hours will just fit on a dual-layer
>> DVD. However, we usually want to edit that video to clean it up, add
>> titles, credits, directors notes, etc. In the process it all get¹s
>> transcoded to DV .mov format in iMovie which triples the size. Since
>> Blu-ray is not an option and the DV format is just to large for
>> reasonable storage at this time, we need to figure out two things: the
>> best video format to save to for long-term backup storage that will fit
>> on a DL DVD, so under 8GB, and the best format to save to for HD based
>> storage on a viewing station in the library.
>> 
>> For storage purposes on a DL DVD, there is no way that I¹m aware of to
>> easily transcode the edited video back to AVCHD. iMovie can export via
>> QuickTime to various formats and we could also use Handbrake to render
>> the edited and exported DV file down to something under 8GB, but I still
>> don¹t know what the best format for that would be. I¹m pretty sure
>> Handbrake has a sizing option where you simply say, render to 7.8GB and
>> it will do the amount of compression to get it there, but is that the
>> best way?
>> 
>> As for the viewing station, the same format that gets it to under 8GB
>> might be fine in terms of current available HD space. Over time HD space
>> will only get cheaper and more available but right now we can¹t be
>> storing 30-40GB files. The related question I have is whether there are
>> differences in format that would affect viewing from a NAS vs a local
>> HD? Is there some format would be better over the network or should we
>> perhaps have two versions ­ high-res for local and lower-res for network
>> viewing?
>> 
>> Comments?
>> 
>> Will
>> 
>> Will Loving, President
>> Dedication Technologies, Inc.
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> William M. Loving
>> Dedication Technologies, Inc.
>> 7 Coach Lane
>> Amherst, MA 01002-3304 USA
>> will at dedicationtechnologies.com
>> Tel: +1 413 253-7223 (GMT ­5)
>> Fax: +1 206 202-0476
>> 
>> 
>> 
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-- 

William M. Loving
Dedication Technologies, Inc.
7 Coach Lane
Amherst, MA 01002-3304   USA
will at dedicationtechnologies.com
Tel: +1 413 253-7223   (GMT ­5)
Fax: +1 206 202-0476