Archiving to Tape in HDV

[Rte80west]

Hi folks,

In addition to burning DVD copies, I typically export projects to miniDV tape. Worked on a recent project on the S4k and exported HDV footage to HD miniDV tape. Upon playing the tape back on the cam, there are occassional "glitches" which appear to be frame drop outs. In other words, a small amount of the footage gets wiped out. If I then rewind and play the tape back again, these "drop outs" occur in different places, not neccesarily in the same place originally noted. These "drop outs" also transfer when uploaded back into the S4k- so it is a legit issue. I never had an issue like this, but figured maybe just using a head cleaner for the camera would remedy the problem? The only thing that may defeat this reasoning is I played back some older archived miniDV tapes with HDV footage that was transferred onto them and these "drop outs" as described, do not appear at all. Possibly just the HD tape I used that's causing issues is defective? But I doubt that b/c as I mentioned before, the "drop outs" will appear in random spots, so while it's a concerning issue, it is not neccesarily an actual defect on the tape b/c it changes. Also, footage that is in the storyboard that looks fine when playing on the S4k, also looks fine when burning to DVD. It is only problematic when archiving to tape (now, of course, if I relaoded the problematic footage on tape back to the S4k, problems would then show up on the footage in the S4k).

My primary concern is that what I think I've archived to miniDV tape is indeed good and if I ever need to access this footage down the line, I won't find out it's damaged. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

[LouBruno]

Many things can effect transfer. Dust, head pitch, poor tape quality etc. It will effect HDV differently and at different locations. WHY?


Long GOP MPEG-2 inter-frame compression issues are usually the problem. One of the 15 post frame boundries can be corrupted.

[Rte80west]

Thanks for the feedback, Lou.

Seems like the problems associated with working in HD are far greater as compared to issues related to SD projects. I wonder if it's even worth it to continue working w/ HD... sure it looks great, but if issues related to quality keep cropping up, maybe it's not even worth messing around with at this juncture.

[TimKennelly]

For work I know I will possibly want access to for DVD duplication, but not future edits I have switched to keeping a master DVD copy and ripping the VOB files off of it on the PC and storing them on a dedicated external drive.

For footage I want to archive to be able to use for re-editing I use HD Backup to dedicated external drives and export out to tape.

[craigpeer]

I usually make 2 copies of my finished HDV back up videos for fear of this very thing.