Storaring footage, what's the best format?

edge30 wrote on 8/11/2004, 4:34 PM
MY dilemma:
I got a lot of footage on my HDD in AVI format (25mbps) that takes too much GBs. I'm a maniac of video quality so I'd like to keep it in the highes possible quality.
However I know that whenever I use that material it'll be to make DVDs so I thought to render that footage in mpeg2 and keep it that format instead.
Doing this obviously reduces the quality of the video... and every time I re-use that video the quality will be less and less...
Does anybody know another format to store footage ? If I put an Mpeg2 file in a vegas project and render as mpeg2, will vegas re-encode the already enconded mpeg2 material (and reduce the quality again)?
Any ideas? or am I dreamming?

Comments

B.Verlik wrote on 8/11/2004, 8:51 PM
I don't know the process but I've heard of it. You can store AVIs directly to DVD but will only be able to get about 18 mins per DVD and this would be regular AVI. Maybe the search engine here will show you. I've saw where somebody just mentioned this a few days ago. DVDs are now about 50 cents each if bought in bulk. Fairly cheap way of storing it. I believe it stores the DATA and then your computer puts it back together. Something like that.
B.Verlik wrote on 8/11/2004, 10:54 PM
This was what I saw, but there's no real directions......

Other option is to burn the .avi file to a DVD-R as a data file. You will not find much you can play it on but you can copy the file into any other PC or Mac and play or edit or whatever with it. Limitation is only about 20 mins of video will fit but you can use Vegas to split it into 20 min segements and burn those and then rejoin when you load the files. I do that for clients quite a lot and DVDs are much better for archival storage than DV tape.
farss wrote on 8/12/2004, 3:28 AM
Probably from my post!
Just use Vegas to render out as 20 min clips and burn these to DVD with say Nero. Maybe you'll fit a bit less with NTSC.
Easiest way, drop avi into Vegas TL, create region from 0 to 18 ( or 20 min) mark, render out to say file01.avi, create new region starting 5 frames before end of last one and extending for same duration. Render out to file02.avi and repeat for whole of TL. Burn each file to a separate DVD using Nero or RecordNowDX.
When you need the video back just copy the files into a directory, drop them in sequence into Vegas, trim off 5 frame overlap and your done.
If you notice a small audio glitch at the join, extend the audio tracks ONLY by 1 or 2 frame with crossfades on, that'll hide the cut in the audio.
Please bear in mind DVDs most likely will not last for ever, maybe 20 years for the best 4x ones. Best bet for archiving are CDs but you'll use a lot of them. Go for the ones with a real gold reflective layer.

Bob.