I think the cool idea here would be some way of using a DV tape to back
up the entire project directory, including the .veg files and any other
non-video media which might have been used. That way it would all be
together on one tape! Maybe the very clever programmer folks at Sonic
Foundry could find a way to archive all the files together and encode them
in a DV data stream so that they could be sent through firewire to a DV
camcorder for later retrieval. Yeah, it would probably look like awful static
on the screen, but as long as you labeled your tapes carefully, it would
be a killer cheap, fast backup! 13.5GB per tape :)

What i've been doing is collecting all my clips together on one tape (if i
shot on several), and then backing up the other files to a CD and storing
that with the tape.

OK I realized I could just look through the Media Pool and see what clips a given project uses.. then use VidCap to individually print each one to tape.. Then I could save the .veg file and any other non-video media to a CD or something.

But it's the recapture process that has me wondering.. Am I wrong in thinking that it would be very tricky to get the clip recaptured such that the first and last frames captured are precisely the first and last that was originally printed? Such that, I could drop the recaptured AVI's back into the project and have them behave precisely as they did when the project was originally created?

Am I right in thinking this would be tricky? Or is it just a matter of leaving some space on the tape in between each clip?

Regardless, it would be awesome if SFVidCap>3.0 could automate this process: Load a .veg file and then have it 'Archive to Tape' .. Meaning it would sequentially print each AVI.. and then even maybe use single frames to store GIFs and BMPs for instance..

..Then later, when you go to load the .veg in Vegas, and it asks if you want to search the drive for the missing files, it could have another option - 'Retrieve from tape'.

What do you think SF?

Seems like we're coming full-circle from my childhood days of the C=64 and the Datasette.. :-P

"Am I wrong in thinking that it would be very tricky to get the clip recaptured such that the first and last frames captured are precisely the first and last that was originally printed?"

Easy? No. It is possible to do this, but it does require that

a)you captured from DV source tapes with clean/continuous timecode,

b) you labeled the tapes correctly during capture

c) your camera is up to the task (cameras are not as accurate as real editing decks, so you might have to recapture some of the clips if errors)

d) your system is properly optimized

So, it can definitely be done. Using a camcorder as a source deck is pushing the limits of the hardware capabilties, but Vegas/Vidcap would not have shipped with the DV recapture feature if it didn't work in our internal and private beta tests.

d) your system

Well we are missing the obvious folks!

VV3 allows you to save the project file to a folder with the media files trimmed. They are trimed with a configurable amount of leader. This is the smallest way to store the media so that the project can be rebuilt.

Archiving that folder now is possible without buying "el Cheapo" IDE drives. DVD-R and DVD+RW will take 4.7 gigs. DVD-R discs are $7 and DVD+RW Discs are $15 and reusable. I have been archiving this way and it is very effective and cost effective. It might take two or three DVD's to store a really big project, but that is still much less than a hard drive, even "El Cheapo."

The cost is easly billed to a client when they see that their entire project has been archived. It is less than I used to pay for a CMX EDL back up :)

Keith

So there is a 'recatpure' function in VideoCapture 3.0? Ami guessing right that this takes a .sfvidcap file and, provided a DV cam/deck is connected to the firewire and loaded with the original source tape, captures all the same footage again?

If this is part of the program now, then this pretty much satisfies what I was originally asking for..

There is a guy working on "zipping" up a folder into DV format so you can use your DV tape as a backup unit.

The tools can be downloaded from:
http://members.home.net/andy.kromkanp/DVtools.zip

The related AVS Forum discussion thread is:
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/010654.html

I haven't got around to trying it.

One issue with this is that VV will also save certain files that are "redundant", such as the *.sfk files. These are automatically regenerated by VV, so they need not be archived.

I'm actually in the process of figuring out which file extensions must be stored and which are redundant. I'm afraid it took an unfortunate "accident" to make me realize I need some of them. P.S. SF, this information should be in the manual.