MiniDV tapes to DVD or HDD ?

[Morvak]

I have Sony handycam home movies I want to move off of miniDV tape but not sure where I should store them.

DVD seems easy enough, but they only last 10 years or so. I could move them to this format and just keep copying to new DVD's every X number of years.

HDD seems like a better choice, especially moving the movies to an external HDD. Copy the movies to external HDD, and store the HDD somewhere safe and cool (i.e. closet, safe)

How long would an external HDD hold up compared to a DVD?

And does anyone here do this (copy tapes to dvd or hdd) ?

Thanks

[thideras]

How long would an external HDD hold up compared to a DVD?Well, we couldn't tell you how long your drive would hold up, it is purely by chance :p. It would depend on the drive and how well it was made, there are some really old hard drives that have kept working for years more than some of the drives I had (40gig WD :bang head).

And does anyone here do this (copy tapes to dvd or hdd) ?We actually leave ours on the tape, they still work :shrug:. Tape is a good backup medium.

[Morvak]

We actually leave ours on the tape, they still work :shrug:. Tape is a good backup medium.

Well for some reason the miniDV tapes are clogging the heads in the Sony Handycam. I had to send the unit in to Best Buy for servicing and the service place called (left me a voicemail) explaining that the heads are getting clogged by bad or old tapes. But i only use new tapes so i don't get it.

So that's why I'm asking. I'd love to leave them on tape, but now i'm wondering if the tapes are no good, did i buy a bad bunch.. were they out in the heat too long..

maybe i should just buy a batch of new tapes.

[thideras]

maybe i should just buy a batch of new tapes.I would do that to test, maybe a different brand?

Don't forget that there is the slight (extreme sarcasm intended) chance that they don't know what they are doing :beer:

[Adragontattoo]

HAIGuze, theez taypes r bad...

No Im not kidding in the above, BB is staffed more and more by the least qualified people..

Can you turn on a pc?

uh, yes?!

Good you are the tech lead for the GS here in the store.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

You can try these idiot test at Best Buy. Dig up the old PC (pre PCI era PC a bonus), then buy the most expensive memory sticks, most expensive PCI-e cards, and biggest SATA hard drive you can find and pay for them to install. Install the gut into a modern looking unbranded PC.

If they reject you PC right away as too old, they are intelligent. But if they take it and not call you until a few days later when nothing works, you know you got moron squad running ruining Best Buy :) :D

[leftheaded]

interesting that this came up. one of my current longterm projects is archiving all of my miniDV tapes. I found out that one 60 minute miniDV is about 12GB of disk space. of course you can compress that down to about 4GB and throw it on a DVD, but then it's compressed.

anyway, I have about 70 tapes (~850GB uncompressed), so I am thinking about getting a 1TB drive just for backing up the tapes. I'll keep the tapes since nothing is wrong with them, but this way I'll have a redundant backup. you can always convert them to mpeg and burn to DVD for yet another copy. the cost of a single 1TB drive is about equal to the amount I've invested in the 70 miniDV tapes :| A couple weeks ago I upgraded to the Sony SR11 so no more tapes for me.

[Morvak]

Yeah, it could be the twits at BB service center have no clue and don't know why the head is clogged or why video playback was not working. Might not be my tapes at all.

So I'm really left at ground zero again wondering what to do.

interesting that this came up. one of my current longterm projects is archiving all of my miniDV tapes. I found out that one 60 minute miniDV is about 12GB of disk space. of course you can compress that down to about 4GB and throw it on a DVD, but then it's compressed.

anyway, I have about 70 tapes (~850GB uncompressed), so I am thinking about getting a 1TB drive just for backing up the tapes. I'll keep the tapes since nothing is wrong with them, but this way I'll have a redundant backup. you can always convert them to mpeg and burn to DVD for yet another copy. the cost of a single 1TB drive is about equal to the amount I've invested in the 70 miniDV tapes :| A couple weeks ago I upgraded to the Sony SR11 so no more tapes for me.

Wow, a 60 min tape = 12 gigs. Eesh. And you have 70 tapes. I don't even want to think about how much time that would take to copy them over to HDD.

I have about 10 tapes right now. I will most likely not copy them and just keep them on tape. But the tapes are of my son who was born last year, and I'd like to pass this stuff down to him when he grows up, and so that he can have them for decades to come.

I hate to keep the minidv's to find out someday minidv's are extinct and HDD or BlueRay has taken over.

Oh that's a good idea - is it possible to burn to Blue Ray yet ? Doesn't Blue Ray hold more data than a regular double layer DVD?

[Mizzery]

Yes you can burn to Blue ray. Blue ray currently holds either 25 or 50 gb - but at a pricepoint of around $20/40 way too expensive per gig. Might as well do a hard drive setup. Best bet for long term storage is HD w/ raid if you ask me.