Posted by Richard Crowley on 12/26/38 11:32

"bmcswain" wrote ...
>I am working with a client that wants to capture to a digital format
> his collection of Beta Videos and LaserDiscs.
>
> Video standards are changing. Today almost everything is in standard
> TV (4:3) By 2010 HDTV will be everywhere, but currently there is a
> confusing array of standards. Also, if I am understanding what I
> read,
> there is no clear leader for a DVD standard for HDTV or data..

But Standard TV (STV) 4:3 needs nothing more than 4:3 storage
regardless of whatever is coming next.

> I am recommending that we capture his videos to AVI format store them
> on a harddrive (actually 2hds with the second as a duplicate/backup.)
> In several years (2009-2011) he can decide what format to convert the
> AVI to.
>
> Is this reasonable?

AVI is only a container file format. You must also decide which codec
to use. For example a very popular codec here is DV which is compressed
5:1 (in the camera/VCR)

But if you need high-quality ("broadcast quality"), you may want to
capture it in an uncompressed process and store it uncompressed (or
with a lossless compression scheme like HuffyUV)

If this is just a rich private collector, DV would likely be sufficient.
Assuming that "Beta" means the old consumer format, and not the
"Betacam" professional format.

> Is there a better format that will give quality and flexability for
> the
> future?

You need more information about the cost/benefit tradeoffs between
how much quality they want vs. how much they want to spend on
conversion and storage, etc.

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