Best way to archive 1" videotape masters?

[Keith Nealy]

I have many 1" videotape masters that I would like to have a lab archive to a digital format.

With all the choices available what would you recommend?

My first guess would be to Uncompressed .avi and then have that broken up and archived by WinRar and put on data DVD's.

Any better suggestions?

Thanks for your help in advance.

aloha,

Keith

[Graeme Nattress]

DigiBeta as a tape format would be appropriate.

[Paul Hazlett]

Interesting.....
I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of 1" to different formats.

[M Taylor]

Whether you archive to DigiBeta or AVIs make sure the post facility has a good quality Analog to Digital converter (ie. Snell & Wilcox) rather than just plugging into analog inputs on VTR or capture card. Depending on quality of masters, you may also consider some noise reduction.

[Johnny Friday]

Keith,
I've been pondering the subject this whole year since i've been shooting on p2 cards. I shoot MOSTLY stock wildlife underwater and maintain a rather large library. I've taken a lot of tape from past years and digitized it to .mov in my case since I'm mac happy and store those file on a number of hard drives--all uncompressed.

a step further is keeping a catalog or library of images, subjects, locations, etc....that's the hard part after the first few hours of images. Then when you have over 500 tapes (in my case) and 160hours of digitized clips....I go mad with my library. I currently use file maker pro and have a template that stores the data I need and I can call anything up on a search...then from that template I have a pathway to the footage--i then have to manually go to that hard drive search the appropriate folder and choose the appropriate clip---it's supper time consuming.

I recently found a product by Imagine products that is specifically for keeping or archiving a library. I am waiting to hear back from them if they will support RED or not....they told me that they would love to and have tried to contact RED but realize red's too busy to work with them and they expect they will make a product for red for archiving a library of footage similar to what they have now---mostly for P2 cards, dv & hd footage.

that may not be what you were looking for....:excl:

[Keith Nealy]

Thanks guys - all good suggestions. Baja, I feel your pain.
Graeme, I think I want to stay with a digital file format instead of tape. Seems like the .wav of the future anyway :)

any more suggestions?

Aloha,

Keith

[Graeme Nattress]

Understood, but getting digibetas made, then transferring yourself to a file format might be quite a good workflow. For file format, even very high bit rate mpeg2 might be good as it stands a chance of being compatible for quite a while.

Graeme

[Keith Nealy]

That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that any mpeg2 would hold as much information as an uncompressed avi. What bitrate would you suggest?

thanks,

Keith