Backing up HDV cassettes

Mizu_Ger

I have a Sony HDR-HC3 1080i camera and a lot of recoreded HDV cassettes. I don't use it as much lately, but I want to backup all my cassettes to a hard drive. What's the best way to backup each tape in the rawest form possible? Which software and format are best?

I have access to a Mac and a PC so can use either to do the backup. I just want to have all this footage available to edit/convert etc whenever I need to in the future.

ScumLord

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

I have a Sony HDR-HC3 1080i camera and a lot of recoreded HDV cassettes. I don't use it as much lately, but I want to backup all my cassettes to a hard drive. What's the best way to backup each tape in the rawest form possible? Which software and format are best?

I have access to a Mac and a PC so can use either to do the backup. I just want to have all this footage available to edit/convert etc whenever I need to in the future.

I think there's some free video editing software for mac, final cut. If you have access to that software it's supposed to be very good.

There's no point in using a raw format if your camera is compressing. I have a Sony camera myself and it records in mpeg2 and I can record into adobe premiere in the same format so I don't seem to lose anything.

So have a look in the manual and see what format your camera is recording in, there should be options (so many options) in final cut for levels of compression which you can turn down or off.

Mizu_Ger

ScumLord wrote: »

I think there's some free video editing software for mac, final cut. If you have access to that software it's supposed to be very good.

There's no point in using a raw format if your camera is compressing. I have a Sony camera myself and it records in mpeg2 and I can record into adobe premiere in the same format so I don't seem to lose anything.

So have a look in the manual and see what format your camera is recording in, there should be options (so many options) in final cut for levels of compression which you can turn down or off.

Thanks.

I probably should have said universal rather than raw. I just want to have it in a format that I can use easily with whatever editing or playback software I may be using in the future. I'll have another look at iMovie.

ScumLord

You shouldn't have too many problems with most formats. The problem would be if the video is compressed when you go to use it later on and do something like colour correction the compression artifacts might pop out at that stage.

If you stick to mpeg2 or mpeg4 you should be fine. It's very common, I think it was a broadcast format at one stage.

Mizu_Ger

Thanks. I'll see what I can do with iMovie.

I connected the camera to my macbook last night for the first time in ages and it didn't recognise it! Wasn't able to go about finding the problem, but I'll have to sort that out before anything else!