Best non loss video codec?

[Glenn Chan]

In my opinion, DVDs are sketchy since they can be easily damaged. And some optical media (especially the cheap stuff) can degrade in 2 years.

2- If you will shoot on a data-based camera like HVX, Red, SI, etc. etc. then it might make a lot of sense to get a computer-based tape-based backup like LTO.

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for that..so I can backup data onto an LTO (?) in the same way I’d burn to a DVD? Is that a bit like a DLT tape drive?

However, if I’m using top quality Verbatim DVD-R stock and storing it in a protective environment, shouldn’t it keep for quite a while?

Just trying to weigh up options, but I guess money will be an issue upto a point if we’re getting high-capacity HDD storage in the near future. I’ll lok into LTO. Ta.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Julio Crespo]

I bought a 300GB with a great external USB enclosure for 150

[Taburineagle]

What I’ve been doing with my nature projects when I archive them is to compress everything to H.264 format – it’s not *lossless*, but it does a somewhat good job of keeping much of the original quality IMHO… The way that I work, I usually have more than one camera angle as part of a feed to archive, and I like to keep “Day edit DVDs”, in case I want to use a clip for later that I wouldn’t have used as part of a normal day’s features. I sync all of the angles together, compress all of them to H.264, seperate every video and audio track, and then take them back into QuickTime Pro and add them to a reference movie, one by one. Doing this, I have angles, sound tracks and graphic elements that I can just turn on or off when I want to see the other angle, etc., and the compression does a somewhat good job (MUCH better than MPEG2 DVDs, because if you’re making a strictly DVD-Video disc, every angle you add reduces the quality of the others – not good for archival purposes) at keeping the original quality. Once I make a DVD-Data copy of the files (the raw video, audio and etc. files, as well as QuickTime reference movies to both a multiangle multiplex version which shows all of the angles playing at one time – which does NOT work when playing from the DVD, but works very well on the HDD, and a normal one-angle version), I copy the entire directory to a drive I have set up to hold raw feeds. That way, I have about 40-50 minutes of video and audio (usually about 2 15 minute video tracks and 2 sound files) fitting into the space of a DVD. That may be kind of overkill for what you’re trying to do, but that’s what I’ve been doing, and it works for me – if you have QuickTime Pro 7, just try taking a minute long clip and compressing it in H.264 – it may work, it may not, for what you’re doing…

[Claesbas]

How come there are no good lossless codecs for video then?

For audio there is plenty, FLAC, Apple Lossless, Microsoft Lossless, TAK, Monkeys Audio and WavPack. All of these are quite the same with perhaps TAK being the latest of the pack with fastest decoding/encoding.

Is it cause the ratio of compression is to low for lossless video?

We got millions of lossy codecs though..

Claes Norin

SAE Institute
Stockholm, SWEDEN