Posted by 100246.2055 on 07/09/07 11:44

On Jul 9, 1:06 pm, Tony <trusso11...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:47:56 -0700, Argo22 <mar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Archiving to DVD is an oxymoron. It is like archiving S-VHS to CD-R or SLP VHS. Copy to MiniDV.


Why?

The quality on DVD is substantially better than U-Matic SP
provided that the DVD is recorded at the "! Hour" or Highest
Quality on the DVD recorder.

The quality on DVD at SLP rates is poor for certain but you
are mot trying to get 3 hours+ on a DVD!

There will certainly be no degradation of the picture quality
from that on the U-Matic .

U-Matic uses a "Colour Under" system with extremely degraded
colour bandwidth compared to the original signal. In other words it's
poor quality to start with compared to true studio formats.

The typical DVD recorder has a good adaptive decoder and records
a component MPEG compressed signal on the DVD. It is capable
of much better than BVU U-Matic and far better than VHS.

Using the HQ setting gives a constant bit rate of some 10Mb/s
which will give broadcast quality or essentially is transparent.

Using DV uses a 20Mb/s rate for compression but is a poor
choice for archiving as it is still a tape format using rotating
heads. All the possibilities of interchange problems between
machines are suddenly back with a tape based format.

The cost of GOOD DV tapes is also high compared to that
of quality blank DVD's.

there are also other obvious advantages of DVDs .

Small storage space required.
Easy to make a copy for preview.
Easy to copy to a new DVD digitally after 10 years or so
to guard against deterioration of the DVD as against the
probability that you won't be able to play the DV at all in
10 years time unless stored in perfect conditions.

After a long investigation the SMPTE found the best medium
for archival storage was digital stored in optical form.

Any tape format is just not the way to go!

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