How do you store Camcorder Videos?
I am investigating this for far too long.. I need some input on how others are doing it. I have done the usual Google search on this a lot, but nothing has convinced me on what is the best way to store your memories. I totally believe that leaving your videos on miniDV tapes is quite inefficient -
- You can’t find the video you want quickly
- You have to buy a new tape when you are out of blank tapes
- Tapes can get damaged / tangled overtime (has already happened to me and I am using a professional repair shop to get my tapes fixed – Pacific Video Repair)
I was thinking of backing up my camcorder videos to external hard drives. Backup to DVDs is not so attractive – although I have done it before, since, again, finding a video quickly is an issue and DVDs can get damaged too. I have already moved my old VHS-C videos to miniDVs and then to DVDs long time ago.
There is a question about the right format too. If I back them up in an uncompressed format like AVI, I know it will take a huge amount of storage space. Hundreds of Mb’s will just fit a few minutes of video. Also if you have your hard drive in FAT32 format, then you have the 4GB / file limit. Of course, now-a-days it is usually NTFS. But on the other hand, is it wise to use compressed formats such as mpeg2 – DVD / mpeg4 – DivX/XviD etc. ‘coz you will lose some detail there in the compression? How will the resulting video look on a 50+ inch TV? Well, DVDs look good, so it should be okay?