Back up Hi8 - D8 masters to another D8 tape via firewire or to JVC S-VHS?

I have 21 Hi8 analog tapes (SONY Hi8 cam), 5 D8 (SONY D8 cam) tapes and 15
VHS tapes that are not backed up in anyway. I cannot attribute a value in
dollars to express how important they are - so they need to backed up
immediately.

There are a lot of options that I have explored but I am down to these
three:

1) Connect my Sony DCR-TRV460 and begin the process of capturing video via
firewire to my PC and systematically burning it to DVD+R discs. WHY ITS
GOOD - because I have a digital capture that is not compressed anymore than
the (D25? 5:1) that is transferred to the computer. WHY IT IS BAD - At
approx 12-13GB per hour of video this means that I will have to consume
three DVD+R's for each hour of video. That is costly!

1A) Can a good argument be made to use NERO and compress this captured video
to DVD in MPEG2 or MPEG4? Which one? What compression variables should be
used or avoided for video recorded on one chip consumer cameras?

2) Connect my Sony DCR-TRV460 via S-video to my JVC S-VHS recorder. Plug in
the tapes and start making back ups. WHY ITS GOOD - Easy, fast and
economical (plus I can create a log of the content). WHY ITS BAD - I will
continue to have some tapes nearing eleven years old continue to decay until
I can get them stored digitally.

3) Connect my Sony DCR-TRV460 via firewire to my relatives Canon D8
camcorder. Begin transferring data and recording them to another set of
8mm/hi8/d8 tapes.

I would appreciate your experiences, recommendations or lessons learned. I
have done a lot of 35mm film archiving/ scanning and the value of these
discussion groups helped tremendously in that regard. Thank you.

 

Assuming your VHS tapes were 2-hr. mode only, your collection totals a
maximum of 77 hr. of footage.
At 3 DVDs/ hr. and blank DVDs at $0.50 ea., you're looking at $115.00 total.
The other way is to buy (77 tapes x 13 GB/gr.) 1000 GB. worth of hard
drives. Newegg has 250 GB WD SATA drives for $160 ea. which comes to
$640.00.
Seems to me like DVDs are the way to go. Make sure to buy good name-brand
media. I'd also make at least 2 copies of each and store them separately -
just in case.

Mike

 

Hi,
Wow, That's a lot to backup, and I probably have just as many in my closet
to do also.
Of course, I doubt the complete tapes are full, so you might not have that
many exact hours to transfer
but still.
What I am planning is to convert to digital (hoping to run through a 3d comb
filter first, either software or hardware) to remove all the noise and
garbage from vhs and hi8 and then store digitally on dv tapes.
That will be expensive but I think worth it, although at 50cents a dvd,
dvd's might even be cheaper. Except more work maybe, cause I figure you can
make the dv copy as it is being transcoded into digital.
Then I plan to edit and create viewable and enjoyable finished copies on
mpeg2 encoded dvd's with only the new mini DV tapes as my new source
material for future use.
I guess 3 dvd's per hour might work also, I need to look into that, but then
again I am still paying a little more for blanks, $19.99 for 25 TDK from
Costco was my last purchase.
I am looking into the Canopus ADVC-300 digital converter with built in TBC
stabilizer and 3D Comb filtering etc... to do the conversion rather than my
camcorder.
For old vhs a TBC is very helpful to prevent jitters and audio glitches that
are caused by worn time code on the old tapes.
Hope this helps,
AnthonyR.

 

I would use the Copy to DV then to DVD but would use DIvx or mpeg4 or wmv to
save space.
my 2c

 

3) Connect my Sony DCR-TRV460 via firewire to my relatives Canon D8

What is this? Canon never made a D8 camcorder? Only Sony and
Hitachi have made D8 camcorders as far as I know?

What I would do is take 2 D8 camcorders and a 4-pin to 4-pin firewire
cable and make digital dubs. Every 10 years I would make new digital
dubs from the old ones but not throw away or erase the original
digital dubs. Every 10 years I would take the 10 year old tapes and
dub them to new tapes but still retain all previous dubs. If at some
point you discover a bad spot on a current digital dub I would just go
back to previous copies until I found one where it was still good.
Always use the SP speed. I would expect even 30 or 40 year old D8
tapes to still play if stored properly. I trust magnetic tapes more
than the dye on burned DVD's. Time will tell which holds up best.

Dave

 

If I were you I would use the Sony DCR_TRV460 to digitize the Hi 8
tapes and transfer via Firewire to a mini DV camcorder to make mini DV
copies instead of D8 copies. D8 is being phased out and you may have a
hard time finding a working D8 player in the future. However mini DV
players will be much easier to find. I would also make mini DV copies
of the D8 tapes. This way you do not lose any resolution for the Hi8
and D8 videos and mini DV tape is cheaper than storing the AVI files
broken into pieces spanning several DVDs. Magnetic media is pretty
robust. I have Hi8 tapes from 13 years ago that are still good. I do
not yet trust all DVD-R/+R disks for longevity.

For the VHS tapes, since they are already relatively poor resolution
compared to D8, I would play them in a good VCR and digitize them
using the analog to digital pass thru feature of the Sony DCR-TRV 460
and capture via Firewire to AVI files on the computer, then convert to
MPEG2 and burn DVDs. For added security you can also store the AVI's
on mini DV tape as well, not for the resolution, but for the longevity
of the media.

 

Yes, Ralfe, that is right.
To dub VHS to either D8 or miniDV one_to_one is just wasting of time and
money. DVD is the most effective way there I think.
Roman

 

Great recommendations everyone!. Since firewire connections utilize
the embeded D25 format in the cameras I have decided to go ahead and
use a new 16 DVD drive to burn my footage. Duplication of those DVDs
is very easy with Roxio suite so that holds a slight advantage to me
over tape backups - only my opinion of course. Thanks!