OT: Video -- digital archiving

[malte brill]

Hello Sivakatirswami,

in my job I deal a lot with digital Video (hundrets of hours of
videofootage) I edit with final cut, (importing DV Streams directly from
tape). These streams are compressed by a hardware component (in my case a
digital cam) in a 5:1 ratio, when playing back to the cam it decompresses
the material and sends it to a tv-set. When I need the material for use on
computers I create mpeg1 files (and am just giving Mpeg4 a try, wich
implemented in QT6 seems promissing) I store the videofootage (DV) on tape,
save my Projekt settings, and all other relevant data to a CD-R.
Storing uncompressed video to the HD is only possible, if you have a
videocard and the software you need to grab it directly. In Quicktime you
would have to set the codec to none. If you grab via Firewire, you need to
use the DV codec. 
Storing an uncompressed file, created from your DV-footage,would incredebly
increase the amount of data you have to deal with, but the quality would
only improve slightly. And it would take hours of rendering time.
I guess storage on tape is the cheapest way, even though storage of the
footage on external HDs would be more enjoyable. (Using a firewire bridge
and buying a harddisc for each project for fast changes on it, leaving the
tapes as backups.
Have a nice day.

Malte