OT: Good Archival Codecs

corug7 wrote on 6/20/2006, 1:31 PM

Recently got a sweet encoding system and SAN at my day job and I'm in charge of selecting an archival method. Just wondering what codec some of you pros out there are using for archival purposes. I am leaning toward High Profile / High Bitrate MPEG-2, Huffyuv, or possibly one of the Cineform codecs. I basically just want one that is better than DV but not as bulky as uncompressed.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/20/2006, 1:33 PM

I'd sure look at Black Magic, BitJazz, Cineform as an archival.
MPEG at bitrates higher than 19Mbps is good too, but not for re-editing. You'll need an intermediate, so why not just use the intermediate format?

p@mast3rs wrote on 6/20/2006, 2:05 PM

So realistically, how many minutes would a regular DVD-R hold of Cineform intermediates for 720p or 1080i?

corug7 wrote on 6/20/2006, 9:08 PM

Thanks for the reply, DSE. I should be more clear about the purpose of this post, as well. Most of what will be stored on the SAN will be short (3 to 15 minute) marketing videos for a large corporation based in our area. We will then take those files and use them for output to tape (mostly BCSP, some DV and VHS), and transcoding to MPEG-2, WMV, Sorenson, etc. We will have access to the original tapes for editing purposes, so that isn't as much of a concern.

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/20/2006, 9:36 PM

If it's only for archive, then MPEG 2 at high bitrates will be fine and efficient, so long as you're not going back to edit them. But you're always better starting with a 4:2:2 master regardless of where it will end up, IMO.