Seeking suggestions on best codec to archive old DV tapes to hard drive.

1. Leaves it in original codec rewrapped as QuickTime.

2. Leave it the way it is.

What Tom said.

Also…if you have any issues in capturing the tapes via FCP X (and some users do), use QuickTime as an alternative.

Russ

What Tom says…

leave it as .dv

You literally pump/dumb the 1s and 0s from tape to drives… no loss, no conversion, no processing.

Unfortunately has to be done in real-time - 1h tape needs 1h to be cloned to your drive(s).

A PowerPC G4/400MHz was able to handle that (… a looong time ago....) 😁

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You don't have to export anything. You can either import as a camera archive, which makes bundle that holds your media, or you can import into an external folder outside the library. Either way your media is entirely separate from FCP and does not have to have anything done to it. You can use FCP simply as an import device, or use the QT player.

As we have attempted to archive our ancient 2", 1" 3/4", Betacam, VHS, and DV tapes, we came up with a few tips to share:

1. Obtain a DVD recorder and loop it into the video path. Make a DVD at the same time you're capturing. Remember to both preview and then finalize the disks.

2. Set up your physical work space so there is a logical progression from piles or boxes of uncaptured stock footage. Clearly label your tapes. Clearly label your DVDs. Clearly separate the captured stuff. We put the completed tapes in a different room.

3. Build a notation and labeling system that absolutely identifies stock that has not been captured and stock that has been captured. Do not use Post-Its, they fall off.

4. Figure it out ahead of time, not after you start.

5. Have an appropriate tape deck cleaning system handy. Those old tapes are dirty.

6. Strongly urge you to take the effort and time to write up some kind of content list of your media as you are working through them. It doesn't have to be comprehensive but, if you or your associates or children hope to ever find anything, you must have dates, rough descriptions, and other metadata. You can do this on index cards or in a database but you really must do it.

7. Hard drives are not eternal. DVDs are not eternal. You should tag these drives and disks with a note to review them and recopy them in about 5 years and again every 10 years. Storage media will continue to evolve and you must maintain copies that can be used on the next generations of hardware and software.

Do you have old family photo albums? Your great grandmother may have written names and dates on the back of every picture in the albums. That's precious metadata. If you do not capture it, it is lost forever.

It's not only not necessary to export, I don't believe there is any way to get them out of FCP X without recompressing them – even if exported as DV,

Russ