How do you archive you footage?

[Jerry y.]

Even as the storage prices drop, storing lots of videos with backups can take terabytes of space.
Hence curious are different producers archive.
Do you keep it all on hardrives and back up? How much space/money is this costing you? Are you compressing Raw footage and How?
Do you only archive to mini DV tapes?

[EDS]

When I was only shooting for my first paysite I kept everything just on the DV tapes, as well as uncompressed raw footage on an external hardrive and would only plug it in when I wanted to put more on, or access older footage.

however shooting for the 2nd, and 3rd site right now, as well as maintaining the first I just bought an old server box that has ports for a bunch of harddrives, and have it plugged into the router here at the office so anyone can access those files. This was really the most cost efficient way...don't need something super new and fancy - just make sure the hard drives are new - but they are so dirt cheap now - FAR cheaper than picking up a bunch of external hard drives.

And of course I have all the mini-dv tapes.

theres also windows homeserver, but i didn't look much into it. Basically the same idea.

[Jerry y.]

Thanks ED
can you go over the server things with me, an overview?
I'm such an external HD guy, I don't know much about that option.

Terrabyes external HD still cost about $300, what would this server option run?

[Lana]

We just back-up to tape. Nothing to go wrong, will last a lifetime (so they say) and dirt cheap. If you don't need to access the footage a lot it's the way to go.

[EDS]

you could even take a regular old computer, doesn't need to be very powerful, and just drop 2 big HD's in it.

in terms of the server box - the one I got, I'm not sure if its a "server" box or whatever - my programmer actually set it up, but basically its a computer in which the motherboard has a ton of slots for harddrives...you can get the ones in which the chassis supports removable hardrives as well, so you can just slide them in and out easily - I just went the cheap way though and just have a bunch of HD's in what looks like a normal computer, and it easily connects to your home or office network via router and you can just access the files...no big difference than a real computer.

[anotherF]

I would personaly keep each movie on the origional medium used for recording, and also a second method of back up. Blu ray disks can hold 25 gigs of data and burners are cheap enough.

Using high capacity hard drives, the slower cheaper ones are perfect and a free NAS (Network Attached Storage) os downloaded from the internet can make a cheap several TB back up system from old pc parts!

[Jerry y.]

Lana:
what if you later want to re-edit the footage, ie, to make it longer or shorter or something else?

EDS: "you could even take a regular old computer, doesn't need to be very powerful, and just drop 2 big HD's in it.

Dont get that? One could just by external hardrives on for ones current computer. Maybe I missed something.

I think I understand your second paragraph a bit more, but will research that.

another:
Well Blu Ray is the answer, when they come down to a buck a pop

[Lana]

[quote]Originally posted by Jerry y.
[b]Lana:
what if you later want to re-edit the footage, ie, to make it longer or shorter or something else?

You export back to tape in the same DV format.
Your putting back in exactly the same as what you captured except it's now edited.
You can pull it back out and do anything you want with it except make it longer. To do that you have to archive your original footage of course.

[anotherF]

The reason you would want to put a couple or more drives in an old computer is to create a separate, network accessed storage location. You will be able to add drives as you need them. Access the data from any computer within your network. Plug in external drives will work out more expensive.

There is no magic wand solution you can either pay a premium and archive the data in it's raw format, or compress the data and store it more cheaply but you will limit the quality of any further work.

[Jerry y.]

Lana:
that makes sense, only drag is if you had 50 clips, you would have to re-capture them, lot of work (but save ton on hard drives)

Another:
good tips, did not know that the network option is cheaper than external HD option, don't see why

[Jerry y.]

Thanks Guys, hard drive is best. Do you find that those Terrabyts get expensive? How many Terrabytes are you up to?

[balls_deep]

Originally posted by Jerry y.
Thanks Guys, hard drive is best. Do you find that those Terrabyts get expensive? How many Terrabytes are you up to?

drives are cheap these days, i just got a bunch of 500 gig externals for 70 bucks a piece.

im rocking about 5TB but i don't use anywhere near that.

[Hunter_ST_69]

1. Keep the original tapes. I've heard of people reusing tapes... that's just not smart. Always keep the originals in case all goes FUBAR.

2. I work off of a 500 gig external for each paysite... and then mirror that drive once a week to a duplicate 500 gig that gets plugged in and removed immediately.

That enables you to re-edit or make YouTube videos with larger watermarks later on easily.

[Jerry y.]

well an hour of footage take what 30 GB?

External Lacies etc stll cost $300, it really adds up

[balls_deep]

functional and cheap vs. top of the line

[Hunter_ST_69]

The cost of a hard drive is small compared to the time and effort you spent editing the work, should you ever need to re-export or re-edit or re-purpose it.

I'd rather take some of this week's check, buy a couple drives and be safe and secure for the year.

[Jerry y.]

Hunter, what you say has logic, but this is a new venture, so there is only spending and no profit for now, and those terrabyte will add up to thousands of dollars, so that's why I inquire on opions here... but sound advice.
So you would spend the bucks now for not having to possiblly hassle re-capturing down the line.
I say possible in that, I could shoot 50 scenes, and then decide to bail the whole thing or "could" want to reformat those scenes completely. I have no idea what future holds. But if I wanted the latter, I would be happy I had them all set on hardrives.

[Hunter_ST_69]

I understand completely.

When I was just starting out, I did not keep original capture files.

I would just edit the video, compress it to WMV, then junk the original files.

Today, 2 years later, I wish I had kept those original files because it would be so much easier to edit new promo videos for MGPs and Tube sites.

The $300 spent back then would have saved me countless hours of recapturing and editing today.

(Please note that I did keep the original DV tapes, though... although they can get expensive for a beginner, you really need to hold onto them).

As a middle ground, I would suggest you keep the captured files and edit files on the PC until, or unless, you absolutely need to delete them.
In the coming months, you might actually make some money off the videos you created... and be able to afford to back them up for safekeeping.

[Jerry y.]

Thanks HUnter, that's the kind of real life story I was hoping to hear.

Well mini DV tapes at $3.50 are not an issue.

It's that HD video takes dozens of Gigs of hard drive space per project, and I usually back that up. So it can get real expensive. And hard drives, you can't really sell them later on and break even. So you are buying them to future proof you needs. I lean toward what you say, but had to post as it is a lot of money for maybe needed something later...