Archiving

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Peter Copestake
Posts: 340
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:23 am
Location: Colne, Lancashire

Archiving

Post by Peter Copestake »

I suppose this has been covered in part before as folk have been saying they archive their films to hard drives. I still use tape and am still keeping camera tapes on the grounds, perhaps hubristic, that someone will find them interesting in the future as they are of real people doing real things, and possibly more so than the film I make from them as the shots tend to be held longer. Of course, they often lack any explanation but then if something is on the screen longer than the popular 3-5 seconds there is more chance that you can work out for oneself what is happening.
Does anyone else think this is still valid?
I recently put an 8mm film onto DVD. It has a quite complete section on Lancashire weaving and another on clog making, the commentary saying that the clogger buys in the soles rather than carving them out from a rectangular block - modernisation at the time. If it were to be made now the shots would be too short to appreciate properly though I still try to keep them longer for the reasons mentioned above.
Peter.
Peter Copestake
col lamb
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: Archiving

Post by col lamb »

Peter

I do not think that there is a right or wrong

I would suggest that saving on both tape and DVD/Bluray would be a better option

Also how about sending DVD/Blurays that are of particular interest to the North West film archive, that way you know that they will be preserved for future generations

Meanwhile there is also Youtube and Vimeo

The only downside of tape will be the ability to actually play them back in the future, take Beta, VHS, sVHS, standard 8, Hi8, Digital 8. How many of these formats can be played back? I can only play back VHS or rather I think that I can as my one player has not been used in five years
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
Find me on Facebook, Colin Lamb
arthur.bates2
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Joined: Thu May 10, 2012 1:56 pm

Re: Archiving

Post by arthur.bates2 »

I too use tape and disc but does solid state devices offer anything here. I have no idea of the permanence of data stored on these can anyone enlighten me? Arthur B.
col lamb
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: Archiving

Post by col lamb »

Arthur

There is nothing wrong with storing movies on tape, it is just the continued ability to actually play them back that is questionable especially as tape based systems are on the way out

By solid state I am assuming that you mean either SD (or similar) cards or solid state hard drives

Because of the way both work neither should be used for permanent storage.

A standard hard drive (with disc platters) is the best option for storage

A docking drive is available for about 20-30 pounds and that connects via USB (ideally USB2 or 3) and the video files stored on a hard drive plugged into the unit. When not in use the hard drive is not spinning and hence its life is going to be quite extensive.

I captured all my MiniDV tapes to a couple of hard drives and they are my backup, whilst I still have the tapes I have no means of playing them back
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
Find me on Facebook, Colin Lamb
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TimStannard
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Archiving

Post by TimStannard »

col lamb wrote: A standard hard drive (with disc platters) is the best option for storage
But let's not forget that even with hard disk storage, copying the data back may still be a problem. How long will it be before controllers for parallel IDE are no longer available? And as for the the hard drives with MFM interfaces I was using only 20 years ago ...

The only real solution is to transfer the data to each new generation of technology.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Mike Shaw

Re: Archiving

Post by Mike Shaw »

I might just go all the way back to square one, and paint images of what I want to keep on the inner walls of our garage - caves no longer being readily available... you simply cannot (nor could you ever) rely on anything lasting ....
Arthur Bates
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:16 pm

Re: Archiving

Post by Arthur Bates »

Hi Colin and others, Thanks for your response. I assume from your replies that solid state is not a good option for long term storage. I will continue to use HD and DVD for each film, long term renewing as necessary and DVD for easy access, the former for long term and the latter for easy access.
Arthur B.
col lamb
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: Archiving

Post by col lamb »

Arthur

There is another way that I did not mention but it is a little more expensive

Have alook at a Western Digital TV hub

It is a 1Tb hard drive unit that connects to your broardband router and if you site it by your TV (assuming you have one with HDMI inputs) then you can connect it to the TV and on it you can store SD and HD video files in MPG2 or MP4 format, you can also store digital images and music, you then have ready access to all the movies at the push of a few remote control buttons

I have one and we also have one at Preston Movie Makers where we use it to store all our club and members movies. I also have ripped my favourite DVD and Blu-ray movies to it and they also are readily accessible
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
Find me on Facebook, Colin Lamb
Peter Copestake
Posts: 340
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:23 am
Location: Colne, Lancashire

Re: Archiving

Post by Peter Copestake »

Thanks for all replies.
I do hope reality/documentary footage from camcorders will be kept on the principle that the bits we don't put into our films may be just as interesting in years to come as the bits we do.
Peter.
Peter Copestake
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