Backup video files for years???

[dmorlow]

Hi, I just bought a DV camcorder that has a hard drive in it. I'm going to be recording lots of videos that I'll want to keep for 20, 30, 40+ years. I need a way of backing it up to make sure I don't loose these video files. I was wondering what other people were doing in the same situation. DVD-Rs, from what I understand, do have a life expectancy of 10 years or so, which is good for most applications, but not with the memories that I'll have of our children that I'll want to show them in 20-30+ years.

Sincerely,

David

[Chewy]

well the movie industry has the same problem, their digital archives have to be constantly replinished

hard drives aren't reliable enough, optical media is just a little better, actually premium film and tape properly stored is still used

I would prefer just reburning from premium dvd to premium dvd every so many years

[dmorlow]

What I'm thinking about doing is just uploading all my videos to YouTube. I'm hoping I can mark the videos private so only people I know can see them. And now with YouTube being owned by Google, I'm hoping they'll be around for 30-50 years and then I'll keep my own copy too as a backup to that. My fear is 5-10 years from now, I'll stop checking to see if the videos are still there, 20 years from now, I'll want to see it, and my YouTube account will be deleted and my DVD backups won't work anymore.

[Chewy]

well if you only try to preserve 50-100 hours of video, that's just 25-50 dvd's and in so many years when everything changes, as it always does, you'll probably transfer to the next standard of backup which will be faster and bigger

like vhs to dvd

[RFBurns]

What I'm thinking about doing is just uploading all my videos to YouTube. I'm hoping I can mark the videos private so only people I know can see them. And now with YouTube being owned by Google, I'm hoping they'll be around for 30-50 years and then I'll keep my own copy too as a backup to that. My fear is 5-10 years from now, I'll stop checking to see if the videos are still there, 20 years from now, I'll want to see it, and my YouTube account will be deleted and my DVD backups won't work anymore.

As with any online server remotely located away from your direct observation and control..it is subject to disaster like being hacked, destroyed by acts of God or fire, or entire infrastructure changes that make the stored formats obsolete and possibly either un-retrievable or completely lost.

I would just burn them to DVD's and every 5 yrs re-burn them to the newer media/formats and burn the discs as regular DVD-Data discs. You might also burn a copy of a player program or two that can read those saved video files just in case some future player wont be able to read the format.

Burn them over to the discs, then have at least two copies of each disc made. With one set, keep around the house...the other two, put one at some bank vault that specializes in vital print and other critical media storage and the third somewhere else...perhaps in a weather-proof box you can bury under the house or at some remote location that you only know of. Sort of like burying secret treasure.

Then every so often, 5 yrs or so...re burn them and re store them in their respective locations.