Archiving to DVD
 

I am going to archive to hard drives of course, but I might want to archive really important footage to DL DVD as a second backup. I understand that some of you guys already do this, and I will be able to get about 8GB on a DVD. Do you copy the BPAV file to a DVD, or do you just do the clips? How long does it take to burn a 8GB card to DVD, and how long would it take to copy the data back into the computer? This seems like a really inexpensive solution even though I might end up with a few hundred DVDs before 50GB Blu-ray becomes more affordable.

Patrick I back up the full BPAV file onto DL-DVD for all jobs.

Check this post:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....1&postcount=11

A few things to consider:

DVD will be a far more accessible format for the next while so easier access to archives potentially, depending on your situations.

And Blu-Ray - similar to hard drives - suffers from the "all the eggs in one basket" syndrome meaning if a Blu-Ray or hard drive gets damaged, lost, stolen you will lose more video than if it is spead across multiple discs. This is also the reason managing 8GB SxS cards can be beneficial versus a single 16GB (or larger).


SG

Don't EVER break clips from the BPAV.
DL-DVD holds 7.9GB so you have to use split function appropriately set to 7.9 (NOT 8) in the Clip Browser for 16GB cards.

There are posts all over forums about people not being able to import "orphaned" MP4 files (depending on NLE).

I use 2.4x R+ DL DVD. These seem to be best for archival. They burn at about 4x and take me about 30 minutes. The faster DL-DVD might not be best for archival purposes.

I use Verbatim 95123 and print info on the surface identifying contents on the disk.

Since the DVD is slightly less than 8GB, can you archive a full card that overlaps into another one, or do you have to watch while you're shooting and stay below the 8GB?

You don't get 8Gb of files on an 8Gb SxS card so there is no problem backing up completely full cards to DL-DVD.

At the moment I believe this to be the best long term solution. As has been said until Blu-ray becomes common place DVD's offer an easy way to share and store material. I have a dedicated laptop that I use to manage and backup my cards. This may seem extravagant but you can pick up cheap laptops with express card slots and DVD burners for less than the cost of a couple of SxS cards. Stick Shotput on the laptop to make verified copies of the cards to a USB drive and the Laptops internal drive. Then use the USB drive for your edit and leave the laptop to do the DVD backups while you are editing.

But 16GB cards can split to over 7.95GB with the Clip Browser split function. 8GB cards on DL-DVD is no problem since they will be under 8GB.

With 16GB cards you should set the "split" to 7.9GB rather than 8GB in Clip Browser.

Other important points
 

As important as the size of the DVD may be are two more points -
never ever only burn a single backup DVD of a given set of files. DVDs (as well as CD-ROMs tend to detoriate over time (as they are od organic nature) to such an extent that your future player may fail to read the valuable data (video) on it. To prevent such a situation, always burn three (3) DVDs. Three never fail at the same time, three are never a mess at the same time. One always works... and makes a perfect source to burn two more identical copies of it again.

Always store your DVDs at different places, one in your studio, one at home and one at a friend's or your brother-in-law's or wherever you assume might be appropriated as well. Make sure that the storage condition meet these three requirements: Dry, Dark, Low constant temperature (not much above 5 degrees Centigrade.

These are the conditions to take into account if you want to enjoy your valuable data even after many years.

My .2 cents

Peter good points but I burn one DL-DVD then back up to HD and work off a RAID 3. Both HD and DV-DVD are in a different location then the RAID.