Digital Linear Tape (DLT)

Save the money and deliver a DDP image from DVDSP on firewire. You can output this image onto your drive in the format window. Do you plan to deliver many titles to replicators? If so then buying a DLT & SCSI card may be the way to go. If not then you'll be spending around $300 for a SCSI card and DLT drive - something you may need once. I suggest sending a DDP image, which is what is written onto a DLT or have someone write the tape for you.

If you have a replicator who doesn't accept a DDP images on HDD then Id say find another replicator. 🙂

However, You'll need an ATTO SCSI card. You can pick them up on EBay for around $200 or so and the DLT drive can be had for around $70.

Do a search for "External DLT 8000" on Ebay.

Yes...that's correct..instead of writing a DDP image to Tape you write it to HDD and deliver that way.

If you need it more than once, you can get a used DLT4000 or DLT8000 drive for under $100 in eBay and get the Ratoc FR1SX Firewire to SCSI device also for under $100, avoiding the cost and pain of dealing with SCSI directly.
The feature DVD titles I am doing absolutely require DLT, non-negotiable, and I've been delivering them with this set-up hooked to my MBP without problems.

Ok, just a few tips:

If you google for the Ratoc FR1SX you'll see you can get it for about $90. Much less than MSRP.

This device needs a power adapter in nearly all cases. Do not buy the one Ratoc sells for $30. Write down the specs and get one anywhere for $5.

You will also need a SCSI adapter to hook the DLT drive, since there are several types of SCSI connectors. Do not buy this from Ratoc either. You can also get it for peanuts.

Finally, the only thing that doesn't work with the Ratoc is reading from the DLT. Bummer, but don't worry. On one hand, DLT is very reliable and it's unlikely to fail. I have made dozens of DVD masters with it, no problems. On the other, remember that many DVD authoring apps don't even have the DLT read functionality at all.

Josh: DLT III or IV as a general purpose back-up strategy is really obsolete. Doesn't make any sense. It's really slow and the capacity is small compared to anything available today.
I wouldn't suggest at all that you use it for back-ups. Just for delivery of DVD masteras.

For all purposes, it's old technology. It just happens to be the old technology used to master DVDs. As such, you can take advantage of the fact that it's ridiculously cheap, given that only DVD authors have any interest in it 🙂

All the tips about delivering DDP images on disc are fine for specific projects and all, but I can tell you that the commercial DVD industry still relies on DLT.

Message was edited by: Adolfo Rozenfeld

IMO nothing is as cost-effective and fast as external hard drives.
Given that for back-ups you could even use the cheapest USB2 ones, you can collect them as if they were tapes nowadays. Seriously.

Given that recently I got a 750 GB quad interface drive for $169, I imagine that a 500 GB USB2 drive must be well below $100.

Want more reliability? Get two large drives and mirror them using RAID 1 for redundancy. Or use one for work, the other for back-ups (even with Time Machine). I have about 20 full DVD projects stored like that.