Best Method to Preserve Extracted Show "Forever"

[MurrayW]

A co-worker's daughter plays on the UCLA tennis team and played in the National Championship match against GA Tech a few weeks ago. It was televised on ESPNu and I recorded it for her on my DirecTiVo, extracted the show using TyTool and made her several DVD copies of it. The file size was just over 3 GB. I just used whatever cheapo DVD-R's I had sitting around.

My question, for something like this that she basically wants to keep "forever" how is the best way to ensure that years from now the digital copy of the show is still available?

These are the options that I see:

Transfer it to higher quality DVD's -- what would I use?
Save it to a small hard drive that she stores in a safe place so it will be available years from now if the DVD's fail.
Save it to a 4GB flash drive stored in a safe place so it will be available years from now if the DVD's fail.
Some combination of the above.


Thanks in advance for the help and advice.

Murray

[Omikron]

If you're looking to transfer it to DVD's, look for the ones that are meant for "mastering" discs. These discs have a higher quality of organic dye, and more layers of protection. As a result, the decay rate for the dye is much slower over the years. Otherwise, a 4GB flash drive would also be good until we stop using USB as a standard.

I'd stay away from the HDD as they have a much higher risk of failure, even when not in use. If you plug in a 10 year old drive, there is no guarantee that it will spin up.

[vurbano]

Invest in a raid server like an Infrant model

[MurrayW]

Invest in a raid server like an Infrant modelNow that sounds cost effective and something my low-tech co-worker is going to want to do to preserve this one copy of her daughter's tennis match! :rolleyes:

[MurrayW]

If you're looking to transfer it to DVD's, look for the ones that are meant for "mastering" discs. These discs have a higher quality of organic dye, and more layers of protection. As a result, the decay rate for the dye is much slower over the years. Otherwise, a 4GB flash drive would also be good until we stop using USB as a standard.

I'd stay away from the HDD as they have a much higher risk of failure, even when not in use. If you plug in a 10 year old drive, there is no guarantee that it will spin up.I bought some Taiyo Yuden 8X +R DVD's and a 4GB flash drive. When I save the file to the flash drive should I just copy the .iso file that I currently have on my computer to the flash drive, or should I convert it to mpeg or something else? The file does not need to be playable from the flash drive, it just needs to be in a form that it could be reconverted into a DVD (or whatever medium is being used) at some point in the future if needed.

thanks,
Murray

[Omikron]

I bought some Taiyo Yuden 8X +R DVD's and a 4GB flash drive. When I save the file to the flash drive should I just copy the .iso file that I currently have on my computer to the flash drive, or should I convert it to mpeg or something else? The file does not need to be playable from the flash drive, it just needs to be in a form that it could be reconverted into a DVD (or whatever medium is being used) at some point in the future if needed.

thanks,
Murray

Murray,

Looks like you're on the right track! I'd probably just keep the ISO on the flash drive, as it's much easier that way to re-burn at a later point if necessary.

Good luck!

[dburckh]

I'm going to stir the pot a little. I don't know if .iso is the best idea. It's ties you to a specific media (aka DVD). DVD is on the way out. HD-DVD/Bluray is already here. MPEG is a format used by both HD-DVD, BluRay, and broadcast TV. It may be better for the 10+ year range. It will be easier to find authoring software to put in on HD DVD and than a blank DVD. (Can you buy blank 8-tracks tapes?) Something to think about...

Another example, I threw my 5 1/4 floppy drive away last month. :)

[Omikron]

I'm going to stir the pot a little. I don't know if .iso is the best idea. It's ties you to a specific media (aka DVD). DVD is on the way out. HD-DVD/Bluray is already here. MPEG is a format used by both HD-DVD, BluRay, and broadcast TV. It may be better for the 10+ year range. It will be easier to find authoring software to put in on HD DVD and than a blank DVD. (Can you buy blank 8-tracks tapes?) Something to think about...

Another example, I threw my 5 1/4 floppy drive away last month. :)

ISO files are just a standard way of storing a disc image. It doesn't tie you to the DVD format at all. In fact, I've used ISO to to store CD, DVD, and HD-DVD formats. Furthermore, it just a file format, and has nothing to do with the storage device it is stored on. Your 5.25" floppy analogy does not apply here, since you are talking about hardware instead of software.

Plus, it's a pretty standard format and I would imagine it would be pretty darn readable even in 20 years. For example, the first ".zip" archive was created in 1989, and it's still WIDELY used today.

I still stand behind my recommendations.

[dburckh]

Ah, I think we are talking about apples and orange. I was talking about the DVD format (VTS_01_1.VOB, etc). This kind of a pain to work with due to the 2GB file size limitation and all the rest of the junk that goes with it. I was saying pure .mpg or .ts would be a better container as it would be more likely to be accepted by authoring tools to create the "next" generation video disc (???) format.

Further, I was making the assumption that Omikron want a set top playable format and he would have to re-author in the format of the day.

Hopefully this makes the 5 1/4 comment make more sense. The point I was trying to make is that if you use the DVD Format, you won't have anything to play it on. (All the DVD players will be in the trash, next to the 5 1/4 floppies, 8 tracks and VCRs).

[captain_video]

DVDs are still going to be with us for quite some time. As long as the HD optical disc format war rages on the vast majority of the public will avoid either format. Just another milestone for corporate greed and stupidity!:rolleyes: What will determine the real winner is when you see one format being carried over the other in your local Blockbuster or other video rental stores. Right now you can't get either format in the retail stores but you can get them through the mail via Blockbuster online and NetFlix.

If you're looking to preserve your memories on recordable DVDs then I highly recommend Taiyo Yuden media (or should I say I second the motion). It's by far the best I've ever used and isn't all that expensive when purchased in spindles of 100. There are several online vendors that carry them. I use allmediaoutlet.com and supermediastore.com quite often for my blank media purchases.

[dburckh]

Right now you can't get either format in the retail stores but you can get them through the mail via Blockbuster online and NetFlix.

Misread but still wish to reply, BB, Target, WalMart carry both. WalMart has more BD (in my local store).

My thought is that its going to come down to content and price like VHS/Beta. First one to release $99 for the player wins.

[captain_video]

I'm talking about the retail rental outlets. Rentals will probably have more impact than sales, but that's just a guess on my part. I think more people are inclined to rent movies than buy them outright. Just look at VHS vs. Beta. The vast majority of video rental stores carried VHS but only a handful catered to the Beta crowd. The stores have to actually start carrying an inventory of one or both formats but that will probably be dictated by market saturation based on hardware sales. Once they see there's a large enough demand they'll start carrying titles in the stores.

If you check out your local BB they tend to have the Blu-Ray hardware sitting out front but you have to search around to find the HD-DVD gear. That leads me to believe that either BB is backing BD or they're taking payola to promote it over HD-DVD. I haven't been in a WalMart in ages so I have no idea if they're promoting anything in particular. I don't recall what Circuit City has on display but I almost bought a Toshiba A2 player from them. I don't remember if they had any BD players on display but I'm sure they had them somewhere.

[dburckh]

This is very timely. Bad news for HD DVD:

http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=6670960

Yet another reason for me to hate Blockbuster.

[wahooj]

Let Google archive it for you, create enough gmail accounts to hold the entire thing, break it into pieces smaller than the maximum gmail attachment size, and upload it is attachments to gmail. Someone has probably written a client to do all the heavy lifting for you.

One advantage GFS has over any local RAID you might do is geographic redundancy. I think they keep a minimum of 3 copies of everything. It must be nice to have nearly infinite resources at your disposal.