Settings for miniDV archiving onto HD in max quality

[Blast1]

Best thing to do is capture via a program like Scenalyzer:
https://www.scenalyzer.com/

When capturing the data on the tape it is basically transfering to disk, nothing is changed except the wrapper which tells it is DV AVI and whether type 1 or 2, are you planning on doing your future editing in premiere, capture as type 2.
If you use Scenalyzer you don’t have to worry about things like time code and audio settings, when you have the video on the disk you can check each file and see what the audio setting is using a free program called G-spot, usually most sony cams have 12bit 32khz as default, if you wanted 16bit 48khz you have had to set it in the cams menu.

[Jim Gunn]

Hard drives are not suitable for long term storage. They are only suitable for quick access and temporary storage since they are prone to failure. Why not just save the original mini-DV tapes? Those are your archival masters that will safely last a long time. If for some reason you have to send those mini-DV tapes away to a client, then simply copy the tapes from camera to camera or camera to deck and you will have perfect copies on tape that will last a long, long time.

[Blast1]

[Jim_Gunn] “Why not just save the original mini-DV tapes?”
Unless tapes are stored under ideal conditions like cool, low humidity, in the proper orientation and go through a wind/rewind cycle every couple years they can have a short life expectency

[Jim Gunn]

“Unless tapes are stored under ideal conditions like cool, low humidity, in the proper orientation and go through a wind/rewind cycle every couple years they can have a short life expectency”

That is nonsense. Mini-DV tapes are very robust and last a long time with almost zero care. I have mini-DV tapes from a decade ago that I had stored loose in a box at room temperature with no special care and also stored some in a storage unit which I recently recaptured. The physical tapes themselves look flawless and the data recaptured perfectly. At worst, one just has to copy the tape every decade or so to make a new pristine copy that will last many years.

Winding and rewinding tapes especially sounds like a bad idea. In any case there is no better or cheaper option to store dv or hdv footage, especially if you film a lot of video like I do.

[Perry Cheng]

I agree with Jim on this one. I know 10 years do not seem long, but as far as security, I tend to think tape is more secure than HDD or even DVD. How often do we hear HDD crashes vs tapes break? When HDD crashes, you lost everything, every clip! When tape breaks, you lost that tape. DVD or BlueRay Disc are more prompt to scratches and breaks than tape, I think.

Tapes is a little time consuming to search, but if one index it well, he/she can pick up a specific tape for things they want fairly quickly.

My 2c
Perry

[Blast1]

[Jim_Gunn] “That is nonsense. Mini-DV tapes are very robust and last a long time with almost zero care.”
There is a proper way to store tapes for long term storage, and you don’t leave them just lay around, you may have a benificial enviroment, not everyone does.
[Jim_Gunn]“Winding and rewinding tapes especially sounds like a bad idea.”
Probably because you don’t know anything about archieving mag tape, Long term storage can cause tape to stick together for various reasons, doing a re-tensioning cycle(3yrs or so) every so often can avoid this or detect problems starting before they get out of hand.
There is nothing wrong with making a backup copy and or working copy to disk, it is currently cheaper than tape copies(unless you use cheap tape), You can get 33-34 tapes on a 500gig drive which currently costs around $100