Comments

kentwolf wrote on 9/23/2006, 7:24 PM
Scenalyzer (sclive) does a good job at this, for reference purposes.
psg wrote on 9/24/2006, 8:37 PM
I second the scenalyzer suggestion. I've archived about 15 DV tapes so far (more to go) using scenalyzer and storing the AVI files on external drives.

The price of hard drives just keeps getting better. I wait for a sale and then pick up one or two drives (example 400GB Seagate IDE drive for $100). I buy some external USB cases to go with the drives and when a drive is full, I put it on the shelf and keep a log of all the scenes (identified by Scenalyzer) so I can quickly find material when I need it.
Paul_Holmes wrote on 9/24/2006, 11:19 PM
My problem is my final render is to lossless Huffy and that won't go back to tape. I'd be losing quality to go back to DV. So I've come to accept the wisdom of this forum and archive on external drives as psg mentioned. I always buy two 300g drives and use one as the master and have a backup program keep the second synched. When the Master drive fills up, I pull both the master and the backup drives and store them on a shelf with the Windows Explorer contents copied from the screen and printed out and then taped onto the drives. Lately I've been buying Samsung 300G drives at CompUSA varying from $100 to $110 after rebate.
zstevek wrote on 9/25/2006, 3:49 AM
I use DVD+R media to back up my projects.

What I do is perform a "save as" when my project is completed and include the trimmed media so I have only the AVI clips I used in my backup (I already omitted the AVI's I don't need for the project). This can still be quite a bit of data (50 - 100 GB), but DVD media is extremely cheap these days ( $.25 per disc), so if I eat up about 20 discs on a backup it is still only costing me $5.

Of course you have to perform a verify after copying the data to confirm it was written correctly, but so far this has proven pretty reliable for me, that bad part is the that it takes a lot of time to back up and restore.
Paul_Holmes wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:32 AM
Yah, Ouch! That's why I switched to Hard drives. Backing up to optical media takes forever even on a 16X writer,and you have to be there to keep putting in new Media.
Paying $100 for a 300G harddrive works out to about 33 cents a gig, which is still more expensive than optical media, but a lot less hassle.
VMP wrote on 9/27/2006, 8:19 AM
Scenalyzer
is indeed a handy software!
Thanks for your replies.
I do have 2 questions though.

- Is there any capture quality difference between Scenalyzer and vidcap?

- The high speed capture option of Scenalyzer (12x) is handy but does this damage the tape, or degrade it faster than normal?
(Camera Sony VX2000, Used tapes Sony Premium)

Thanks, V
riredale wrote on 9/27/2006, 8:31 AM
This is a digital transfer you're talking about, not an analog one like back in the old days. There should be no difference at all whether you use Vidcap or SCLive; the data is simply being copied bit-for-bit. One thing I like about SCLive is the ability to name clips based on shooting time and date.

Performing a high-speed scan shouldn't hurt anything, though of course there's the extra wear and tear of an additional pass on your tape mechanism.