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<DIV>Dear Info-Childes:</DIV>
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<DIV>I can offer some further advice on saving video: In addition to the original tapes, which should of course be saved if possible, I've been having what I believe are good results saving my video digitally in MPG format. To my eye, there is absolutely no discernible difference in the quality (I use the conversion codec from Main Concept, Inc., which comes with Vegas Video). As far as I can see, the only reason to store them in avi would be that some software product one wants to use some day might require it, but if so, they could always be converted back to avi, which can be done automatically by batch converters. Try it first, of course, just to be sure. (Several free ones available - just check Google - but the best one I know of after checking the others out is Batch Converter 5.0 supplied by Vegas Video, now owned by Sony). Caution, though: be sure to keep the audio track (which you might be tempted not to do if your tapes are of sign language, as most of mine are). Some video software products I've encountered - including both the Sony Batch Converter and Quicktime (which latter product converts, but not in batch) - expect the audio to be there and perform poorly or refuse to perform at all if it is not.</DIV>
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<DIV>One never, never knows, of course, and just to be 100% sure, for the last year of so I've started saving the avi's as well. Where to put them all? The problem is not just the expense of all the DVDs but also the time it takes to burn them. I believe the best solution to both problems is simply to buy an external hard drive (external so you could store it in the closet, and won't have to yank it out when you switch computers). It's super fast to copy things there (unlike burning DVDs), and in my view it's safer, too. And it's probably cheaper financially if you add up how many DVDS would be required. It's much, much cheaper in terms of time.</DIV>
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<DIV>As you (Joe Stemberger) noted, no one knows how long DVDs will keep. I'm really scared of them myself. I used to naively believe they were made of some sort of shiny high tech indestructible metal, but No. They're just plastic. You can break them in your hand (if you try this, wear gloves so you won't cut yourself). And one important item of information I learned from a DVD guru I consulted about this: If you plan to write on them, get the ones with the white backs intended to be printed on. According to the expert, what you write on the back with a Sharpie can eventually bleed through and make them unreadable.</DIV>
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<DIV>Good luck!</DIV>
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<DIV>Peyton Todd</DIV><BR><BR><BR>-----Original Message----- <BR>From: Joe Stemberger <STEMBERG@INTERCHANGE.UBC.CA><BR>Sent: Mar 23, 2006 11:49 PM <BR>To: <BR>Cc: info-childes@mail.talkbank.org <BR>Subject: Re: warning on formats and media <BR><BR><ZZZHTML><ZZZHEAD><ZZZMETA content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"></ZZZHEAD><ZZZBODY bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><FONT face=Arial>Brian,<BR><BR>Thanks for the reminder about the MP3 and DVD formats.<BR><BR>I have a follow-up question to this statement:<BR></FONT><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=midB8C7682B-D128-4AB4-9278-20DBFF6B8192@cmu.edu type="cite">For both video and audio, it is important to preserve your original uncompressed media as your archival source. For audio, this means the WAV files. For video, it typically means the mini-DV cassettes used by a digital recorder or the original VHS. <BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>Storing WAV files is easy and cheap. And they're easy and cheap to copy. An hour of uncompressed sound is only 600MB, after all.<BR><BR>But video is something else entirely, since each hour is 15GB. Although I COULD break up each 40-60-minute-long recording session into 3 or 4 parts and back them up as files on DVD disks (not in DVD format), I find that I don't. I do rely on the original mini-DV tapes for archiving.<BR><BR>Can you tell us how long mini-DV cassettes last before they degrade? When do I need to think about backing them up to another storage medium?<BR><BR>(I've heard that DVD disks are supposed to last for 100 years --- but since they havn't been around for anywhere near that long, I have my doubts about how much I can rely on that. Still, maybe 30 years?) <BR><BR><BR>Thanks!<BR><BR><BR>---Joe Stemberger<BR>Linguistics<BR>University of British Columbia<BR></ZZZBODY></ZZZHTML></DIV></BODY>