Just "spinning up" a little-used hard drive 3-4 times a year should keep everything running smoothly.

That is what I have been undecided about whether to store on hard drive or disk. So which ever I decide would I still just copy the AVI files imported from camcorder? Thanks.

Regardless of your preferred method of long term storage there is risk. It really just depends on your circumstances. Just me personally would be to go ahead and save to mpeg2 and make conventional dvd but save a backup of the dvd iso on a harddrive. Depending on your equipment however you might want to turn them into mpg4. I have a dvd player that will play a number of compressed formats just as divx or wmv. If I ever want to edit any of the video I could just recapture off of the dvd by running it through my Canopus 110 as uncompressed video. Also by compressing to a format that is more compressed you also have the option of storing long term to an internet upload service.

The last factor is the value of the video itself. The more valuable the more backups you want. So for some video you would probably want to keep the miniDV tape along with compressed and or uncompressed video.

If I ever want to edit any of the video I could just recapture off of the dvd by running it through my Canopus 110 as uncompressed video.

Why would you want to capture in analogue form when you already have a digital source? You could simply copy the VOB files from the DVD.

Assuming that you are going to backup as standard DVD my preference would be to use DVDShrink to transfer back to the PC. If you uncheck 'Split VOB files into 1GB chunks' in Edit>Preferences>Output files you will end up with a seamless source file for editing.

Regardless of your preferred method of long term storage there is risk.

That is correct, but to imply that converting the video to another format and burning it to a dvd is somehow going to reduce that risk, is incorrect.

The conversion from DV-AVI to MPEG-2 will degrade, not preserve the quality of the original video. This is true for several reasons that have been amply discussed, including the chroma subsampling issue.

It was my impression that the OP wished to archive (preserve) his original DV-AVI files, not store them as dvd.
The storage medium was the gist of the original question, it seems to me.

You are correct musicvid,I am wanting to save the original files not compress them. After hearing that I might need to restore them every few years to another drive, I think I have more confidence in a good quality media disk to store them to instead of another hard drive. I might regret this later on but I guess that's life. I really thank everyone for their advise.

I really think they'd be more secure on a hard drive than on a disc. Numerous studies have shown the storage life of optical media to be very variable. If you choose that method I would buy top quality media. A hard drive, used only occasionally should provide secure storage for many years.

The reason I would recapture from compressed video through a converter would be to have an uncompressed format to edit. I dislike editing from a compressed format.

I did not imply converting video into another format and burning to dvd reduced the risk except to the extent it created another copy. I said the importance of the video determines how many copies you should have. There is also risk in storing video (compressed or uncompressed) on a hard drive. I've lost a hard drive that had quite a bit of video on it.

"The reason I would recapture from compressed video through a converter would be to have an uncompressed format to edit."

You'd be far better off saving the original DV .avi files. Then you wouldn't have to do any conversion and recapturing at all, and you'd save two degradation steps and a lot of time.

I could save the miniDV tapes as long term storage. But saving uncompressed files on hard drives in order to re-edit them at some point in the future doesn't interest me. The likelihood isn't great that I would have to re-edit. At least that has been the case so far. I would have to have a lot of hard drives for that. The simple fact of the matter is that when I've taken video it get made into the dvd and generally YouTube videos fairly soon after filming. About all the archiving I do is saving the dvd iso image or files on hard disk.

DV .avi files would take up a LOT less room than uncompressed. Only about 1/8 as much space, in fact. No need to save uncompressed.

That leads me to think this poster may be under the impression that rendering to uncompressed from multiple sequential, differentiated compressed formats will somehow "restore" it to its original DV-AVI quality. As you know, nothing could be farther from the truth. It will now be the equivalent of 4:1:0, as well as still suffering the typical 2nd-generation cross-format rendering losses.

Here is a link to an interesting article that bears directly on DVD longevity:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,107607,00.html

Actually I did not suggest rendering to uncompressed format from multiple sequential, differentiated compressed formats will restore to original quality at all. I spoke of capturing video that had been formatted for dvd; played on a dvd player and captured through the converter. That should be the same as capturing a non-copyright protected dvd.

Chienworks forgive me for my ignorance. You are far more knowledgeable about video work than I am. But avi is used to speak of a couple of 'formats'; one being the uncompressed video and the other compressed divx if I'm not mistaken. Is there another sort?

By the way I'm aware that avi is not actually a format but a container. Not sure of the difference though.