Backing up MiniDV's (best quality) ?
 

Need to back up my MiniDV tapes in original quality on my hard drive. What is the best program and method to do this?

On one PC I use the installed video editing card with the software shipped with it (canapus). On another PC I just plugin the firewire caple and import into Adobe Premiere. For storage I have a 6 TB network drive. It's a bit slow but as a backup that can be accessed anywhere it works for me.

I use a mini DV to DVD duplicator. It makes a 10MBit 1 hr DVD from each tape. They look identical even on my high def screens.

This is an interesting thread...

canapus makes excellent equipment

The easiest way is to copy data with WinDV software (freeware) to your HDD. Simple.

I use Ulead Videostudio, capturing (via firewire) just saves the .avi file - a container for the DV stream - to my hard drive. I would guess that most video editors do this, just make sure they're not converting to something else on the fly.

DV consumes about 13 gigs per hour when it's on your PC.

Your cam may also support DV writing, which means you can copy the DV data on your PC to a fresh tape. (Since it's digital, it is an exact copy.)

If the content matters enough I'd store it both on HD and backup tape. :2 cents:

what are some links for this type of device?

This kind of device is by far the best option for backing up MiniDV's.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ecorder.h tml

Yep thats what I use :) :thumbsup

Backing up mini-DV tapes to a hard drive is a bad idea in general. Hard drives are temporary storage, to be used for editing and creative work. The best way to back up valuable footage on a mini-DV tapes is to copy it to another mini-DV tape, camera-to-camera, or camera to deck.