I need some advice on how to backup my mini DV tapes into a format that will preserve the data on the original recording, just in case I need/want to re-create my movies or even create new versions of my movies. I have a number of DV tapes of my honeymoon and wish to preserve them. I don't really know which format to save them in, I guess I will save to DVD (4.7GB).

Initial tests have saved my DV tapes to a single AVI file that is approx 13GB in length and cannot be copied onto DVD as a single file cannot be split across multiple DVD's (unless I zip the file and span the zip file)

One approach perhaps would be to save 6 times 10 min files, this would resolve the spanning issue.

Do any of you hardened / established / competent movie makers have any advice for a newbie???

back up the original avi's onto a HDD only for backup AVIs... you can pick up a 250gig or 500gig pretty cheap.

Keep the original tapes, too. If the tapes are that important, consider making duplicates. If you capture them to your computer, it is easy to create new tape copies.

Also, keep your backups in a different location than the originals, preferably climate controlled.

MiniDV tapes outlast DVD Recordables, what's the point to back up from MiniDV to DVD?

If the recording cover the honeymoon nights aswell, I will take care of the backup for ya :D

Sorry I couldn't help myself...

I would have to agree with John and Juni... Tapes are probably the best storage medium for the long run.

I back up personal important memories on HDD as well as the original tapes. consider two HDD in different locations, plus the original tapes.

Initial tests have saved my DV tapes to a single AVI file that is approx 13GB in length and cannot be copied onto DVD as a single file cannot be split across multiple DVD's (unless I zip the file and span the zip file)
* You can split any binary file into several, there are utilities for that.
* You can split you DV-AVI into several valid DV-AVIs with your NLE.
* You can capture with "scene mode" or whatever it is called in your NLE turned on, this way each clip will be put into a separate file. I doubt that you shot a whole tape as one scene.
* You can capture onto a drive formatted with FAT32. This way your video will be split into nice 4GB portions, but you have to check with your NLE that it indeed does it, not just blows up with some null-pointer exception. Then you can save 4GB pieces onto single-layer DVDs.

MiniDV tapes outlast DVD Recordables, what's the point to back up from MiniDV to DVD?
Random (and much faster) access. I would backup to DVDs for occasional access, I would keep the tape as well.

What's the best utility software to split and merge AVI files?


* You can split any binary file into several, there are utilities for that.
* You can split you DV-AVI into several valid DV-AVIs with your NLE.
* You can capture with "scene mode" or whatever it is called in your NLE turned on, this way each clip will be put into a separate file. I doubt that you shot a whole tape as one scene.
* You can capture onto a drive formatted with FAT32. This way your video will be split into nice 4GB portions, but you have to check with your NLE that it indeed does it, not just blows up with some null-pointer exception. Then you can save 4GB pieces onto single-layer DVDs.