P2 card backup to dvd
 

Has anyone copied a 8gig card to a dual layer dvd as a back up? Did you use HD LOG or how did you do it. I am interested in archiving my footage. Thanks

I don't think this route is the best way to go. Sounds like a lot of DVDs. Why not archive to hard drive or DLT tape instead.

While I don't have any 8 gig cards yet, I back up all my footage on DVD's.
I've had to many hard drives crash on me to trust having 300 gig of one of a kind footage go bye-bye.
I buy 200 packs of printable Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD's for around $70 and make two copies. It may take some time but I feel better about loosing a DVD or two than to seeing a whole trip destoyed because of a drive crash.

Paul, I also use DVD-Rs for backing up P2 data. I also have it online on hard drives as long as I'm editing it, but that goes without saying...

Although I am shooting with 8GB cards I split up the contents of the VIDEO folder so I can burn the data onto two 4.7GB DVD-Rs. If I ever need to get the data back, it's just a few drag and drops and I'm ready.

DVD-Rs are very economical compared to the other solutions, and if you use high quality media like Taiyo Yuden, store the discs properly, and employ redundancy with a 2nd copy (preferably stored offsite), you'll be pretty safe. DVD-Rs are also not very large, in 2-disc jewel cases they do not take up much more space than stacks of DV tapes.

I don't use dual layer dvds yet; I have a friend in the CD&DVD manufacturing business who is not completely confident in DL DVD media for archival purposes, yet...besides, they take longer to write and cost almost 3 or 4 times as much.

While tape drive is a mature technology, since "tape" means "linear" the prospect of having to restore some data sounds a little tricky. Plus I like having a tangible, self-contained hard copy of every card I shoot, which makes organizing and retrieving data painless. This method works well for me, but other folks have different methods that they are probably very happy with.

I occasionally do this with DL discs.

Works well, but I also have redundant HD backups

The bottom line is, that there is no single pefect storage solution regardless what the original media was however, HDD's are in fact the most cost-effective and reliable solution with current technology.

If you don't shoot much and or don't work on projects with hundreds or thousands of hours of footage then a DVD backup scheme will work fine. But when you consider that it would take over 150 single-layer DVD's to equal the storage capacity of just one 750GB drive then the practicality of individual discs becomes unweildy both in physical storage and cataloging.

For example, our cataloging/archiving scheme is to use external FW drives in enclosures that allow for the bare drives to be removed/replaced as they fill up. We have a primary backup enclosure and, a secondary backup which is a clone of the first. In this way we have both redundancy and diversity. It's important to note that both backup enclosures don't get powered on until it's time to make another transfer or copy. The chances of both backup enclosures having a catastrophic failure are astronomical.

Regardless of which scheme or archiving method you adopt the single greatest point of security is to have a physcially diverse copy of your backups.