<p>When my 8 month old tried to buff the hardwood floor with some choice discs from our dvd collection, I decided to find a better way to handle video.</p>
<p>I ripped each one and converted to h.264, then stored on my computer upstairs, then set up streaming to the ps3 downstairs for the kids to watch.</p>
<p>I had to experiment a bit to get the results I wanted, but now I get a normal 2 hour dvd to a bit over 1 gig with 5.1 stereo output.</p>
<p>VHS conversion will leave a good bit of noise and artifacting, so it doesn't compress down as much, but you should be able to put your library in a much smaller amount of space then the MPEG 2 it sounds like you are using.</p>
<p>These days I normally see 2 TB drives for about $90-120 depending on how long you can wait for it to cough out the data. </p>
<p>I would set up two of those in a mirror and play with conversion tweaks to see how small you can get them without degrading playback.<br>
</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Oct 16, 2012 12:33 PM, "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <<a href="mailto:atllinuxenthinfo@techstarship.com">atllinuxenthinfo@techstarship.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
HI all,<br>
<br>
After a few hours of Googling and reading forums and such, I've got some<br>
new data that I wanted to share. My little video conversion project<br>
seems to be hitting a snag. The 800 hours of videos I have are in the<br>
category of important to me, but not critical. If I lose them, I won't<br>
die tomorrow. So, the snag I'm hitting is the cost in terms of storage<br>
cost and time to convert them. I don't have a huge budget, certainly<br>
not all at once. I wanted to share my results, and see if you guys<br>
think I'm missing something.<br>
<br>
In terms of time, I think it will take me 10 - 15 minutes of tinkering<br>
with equipment, software, discs, cases, labels, etc. per one hour show<br>
to convert. More if I do edits and cut commercials and sync the sound,<br>
etc. Perhaps less if I store only to HDD and don't edit. That adds up<br>
to 200 hours of my time, a non trivial amount. Obviously the video tape<br>
must play, but I don't necessarily have to watch it.<br>
<br>
Here is what I believe to be the state of the art in storage options.<br>
<br>
I'm not considering other types of tape at this point. I'm also not<br>
considering SSD, based on data retention issues I mentioned in another post.<br>
Option 1 is using HDD's to store the videos.<br>
Option 2 is some other type of disc, bluray, dvd, or mdisc.<br>
Option 3 is online storage.<br>
Based on my reading, I have concerns about the long term reliability of<br>
bluray, so I'm probably dismissing it.<br>
<br>
Let's discuss discs first. Assume a single layer single sided DVD can<br>
hold ~1 hour of good quality video at a data rate of about 8 Mbps. For<br>
a HDD, assume 4.7 GB / hr of video. Note, in some of the forums where<br>
people burn LOTS of DVD's and spend hours checking their error rates<br>
etc, it was mentioned that 16x write speed DVD's are not reliable. So,<br>
if available, I'm mentioning only 8x DVD's here. There are also many<br>
types of dyes, and very confusing data, which I'm not going to try to<br>
sort out here as I don't understand it all. There are may types of<br>
printable surfaces on the top of the disc, for automated printing of<br>
labels. Lightscribe and inkjet surfaces are examples. These usually<br>
increase the cost. I don't need them. For my purposes, writing on the<br>
disc with a DVD safe sharpie pen is enough. Based on my reading, double<br>
layer discs suffer more compatibility problems so I'm not considering<br>
them. Double sided discs are much more likely to get scratched and<br>
cannot easily be labeled so I'm not considering them. It is actually<br>
very hard to figure out all the DVD media options, but I've selected a<br>
few to look at. Prices are Amazon, if they sell the product in question.<br>
<br>
Gotta account for the case for the DVD, about $ 0.25 each.<br>
<br>
The DVD-R format seems to be the most universally compatible. I'm not<br>
trying to list all discs here, just get representative prices. Of<br>
conventionally constructed discs, Verbatim seems to have a good<br>
reputation, but there are varying reviews. Longevity estimates for<br>
conventional disc media range from 5 years anecdotal to 50 years from<br>
the factories. I will say that I have some 5 year old Maxell DVD-R's<br>
that are still readable, but I will probably copy them to archival discs.<br>
<br>
VERBATIM 94852 DVD-r media 8x 4.7gb 50-pk spindle (shiny silver) - $ 19<br>
/ 50 = $ 0.38 / disc. Cost with case (cwc) = $ 0.63 / disc<br>
Verbatim Shiny Silver DataLife Plus 8x DVD-R Spindle, 50 Discs - also $<br>
19 / 50<br>
<br>
It seems that JVC Taiyo Yuden is the top of the heap in terms of quality<br>
for conventional media. Taiyo Yuden bought part of JVC as I understand<br>
it and they're now shipping with JVC part numbers and packaging. Many<br>
people still know the Taiyo Yuden name and so that's usually listed in<br>
the product listings. Apparently, some TY discs themselves are<br>
unlabeled, so if you want TY, make sure you get TY.<br>
<br>
100 Taiyo Yuden/JVC 8X DVD-R 4.7GB Silver Thermal Lacquer - $ 29 / 100 =<br>
$ 0.29 / disc. cwc = $ 0.54 / disc Better product, cheaper price. Cool.<br>
<br>
Still, I don't consider these discs long term storage. The next step up<br>
is archival grade discs, which are much more expensive. Archival grade<br>
discs usually have a solid gold layer to minimize corrosion and maximize<br>
reflectivity. Some have gold only. Some have gold and silver, which is<br>
cheaper - less gold, more silver. They also usually have an extra hard<br>
coating to prevent scratches. Conventional DVD's are insanely easy to<br>
scratch.<br>
<br>
Verbatim 95355 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 50-Disc<br>
Spindle - $ 93 / 50 = $ 1.86 / disc. cwc = $ 2.11 / disc<br>
<br>
My research tells me that MAM-A / Mitsui is state of the art in archival<br>
grade discs. They have lots of data on their website. Their gold /<br>
silver DVD discs are projected to last 83 years. Their gold DVD discs<br>
are projected to last 100 years. And their gold CD discs are projected<br>
to last 300 years. Also, note the same risk as above in buying<br>
unlabeled discs.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.mam-a.com/" target="_blank">http://www.mam-a.com/</a><br>
<br>
MAM-A Mitsui Gold Archive 8x DVD-R with no logo in bulk - 50 Count = $<br>
117 / 50 = $ 2.34 / disc. cwc = $ 2.59 / disc (100 year discs)<br>
MAM-A 8x SILVER PLUS GOLD DVD-R Branded Gold Surface 50pk Beehive with<br>
Hard Coat - $ 93 / 50 = 1.86 / disc. cwc = $ 2.11 / disc (83 year<br>
discs) (factory price)<br>
MAM-A 84019 Silver plus Gold DVD-R 16x 4.7GB MAM-A Logo 50pk Spindle -<br>
84019 - $ 80 / 50 = $ 1.60 / disc. cwc = $ 1.85 / disc (83 year<br>
discs) (dealer price)<br>
<br>
This last one is probably the best compromise between price and longevity.<br>
<br>
Finally, if you want longevity for 1000 years, there's m-disc, as<br>
mentioned previously. This is overkill for what I'm doing, but here are<br>
the prices.<br>
<br>
M-DISC DVD+R 4X Cake Box 50 Pack - $ 136 / 50 = $ 2.72 / disc. cwc = $<br>
2.97 / disc. That's only $ 0.38 / disc more than the 100 year discs.<br>
Not to bad if you need that kind of lifespan.<br>
<br>
So, the best I can do for an archival grade disc is $ 1.85 / disc.<br>
<br>
Now, what about the HDD option. Here's a 3 TB drive I found on Amazon.<br>
<br>
Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop<br>
Hard Drive - WD30EZRX - $ 140<br>
<br>
Let's say I want two for redundancy, since this is NOT archival media.<br>
I would definitely spinrite this thing a couple of times / year to<br>
refresh the magnetic fields. That process would probably take 5 days.<br>
2 HDD - $ 280<br>
<br>
How about a nice dual drive case with fan.<br>
<br>
Vantec Dual 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 and eSATA with JBOD/RAID 0/1<br>
External Hard Drive Enclosure (NST-400MX-S3R) - $ 83<br>
<br>
So the total cost is - $ 363<br>
<br>
And we can store 3000 GB / 4.7 GB per hour = 638 hours of video<br>
approximately equivalent to 638 DVD's.<br>
<br>
So, cost per equivalent DVD works out to - $ 363 / 638 = $ 0.57 / "disc"<br>
or hour. This is slightly more than the cost of cheap DVD's when cost<br>
of cases is accounted for but substantially less than the cost of<br>
archival DVD's.<br>
<br>
So, here's how I see my choices.<br>
<br>
- 83 year archival DVD's<br>
<br>
* relatively low up front cost for 50 pack<br>
* substantially larger long term cost<br>
* some additional cost for storage rack, etc. (and where do I put it)<br>
* discs are easy to access and play in dvd player<br>
<br>
- two big hard drives<br>
<br>
* relatively high up front cost<br>
* substantially lower long term cost<br>
* minimal space required<br>
* movies are harder to access since I have to hook up computer to tv<br>
and start player, etc.<br>
<br>
There is the possibility of online storage. Storing 5 GB on Amazon S3<br>
will cost me $ 0.75 / month for 1 hour of video. It will cost me about<br>
$ 0.75 each time I retrieve it. Given the quantity of data, not very<br>
practical.<br>
<br>
None of these choices are really great for me. What I may do is to<br>
select the best 50 - 100 hours of source video and put them onto 83 year<br>
archival discs. Even that would cost me $ 185. I'm not sure it's worth<br>
it. If I'm comparing the HDD to the 83 year archival discs, the hard<br>
drive becomes more economical than the discs once I store 196 hours of<br>
video. At this point, it seems there are no good (within my budget)<br>
options to store 800 hours of video. One other option is to convert<br>
everything to cheap DVD's, then refresh it and recopy it every 5 - 10<br>
years. That doesn't sound too attractive either.<br>
<br>
PS, from a hardware perspective, the Hauppauge USB-Live2 analog video<br>
digitizer looks cool. Haven't tried it and don't know about it's<br>
drivers or software. I can get mdisc / bluray drives in the $ 50 - 100<br>
range.<br>
<br>
Let me know what you think, and whether I've left out anything major.<br>
This took two hours to type and I didn't proofread it, so sorry for any<br>
errors.<br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br>
<br>
Ron<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/15/2012 4:45 PM, JD wrote:<br>
>> I also wanted to share a great way to track and catalog DVD's that<br>
>> you've purchased. It's an android app called MyMovies (free - limited<br>
>> to 50 titles) and MyMovies Pro ($6 - unlimited). It's ultra cool. Just<br>
>><br>
> Hopefully, someone else has found a fantastic Linux video editor and will be<br>
> able to let us all know about it.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> Previously I used a F/LOSS web server + back-end DB to catalog DVDs and<br>
> recordings. Over time, that became too much effort and I didn't like that the<br>
> program forced me to a specific DB and the export was only to HTML files. Tried<br>
> a Java desktop client too, but it was toooo damn slow. It didn't play nice on<br>
> my network.<br>
><br>
> Ended up using the time-proven 'ls -Rl' technique with numbered DVDs. With a<br>
> large number of data DVDs holding TV recordings in xvid/avi or h.264/mkv, a<br>
> quick 'egrep -i' searches by title for the specific numbered disk containing the<br>
> recorded show/movie. As a CLI person, the most-used desktops all have a script<br>
> that will ssh over to the main box with all the dvd-0xyz.txt files and perform<br>
> the query. For more information, XBMC has the catalog with actors, directors,<br>
> year, genre, title, etc .... grep is just so useful and text is so easy to<br>
> search.<br>
><br>
> I love that the grep clearly returns the numbered data DVD I need to load.<br>
><br>
> As to converting VHS to MPEG or XVID or h.264, almost any $20 USB TV adapter can<br>
> record SD content to MPEG2. Just pick from a MythTV compatible device to be<br>
> happiest long term. If you want to record OTA HD content, I'd suggest more<br>
> effort for the selected hardware. I love the HD-Homerun network tuners. Those<br>
> work well with OTA except 1 channel that doesn't come in at my house. It is<br>
> hardly a major issue, since 69 other channels do come in OTA from Marietta.<br>
><br>
> For finding commercials and editing them out, I searched for Linux-based<br>
> solutions for years and finally gave up. Comskip does run nice under WINE, I've<br>
> never found a Linux-based editor that will accept the comskip created cut files<br>
> (there's like 6 different formats that comskip will create) as the starting<br>
> point for where to cut commercials. Comskip is about 90% accurate. Comskip can<br>
> output cut marker files that XBMC and mplayer will honor without altering the<br>
> source video file. That can be handy when you just want to skip commercials, but<br>
> not waste time actually modifying the file contents.<br>
><br>
> Instead of fighting it, I bought - yes, purchased a Windows tool called<br>
> VideoRedo TV Suite. It appears to use comskip code internally to create cut<br>
> markers. There's a point where $50 is worth it to me. That $50 program has<br>
> been heavily automated here to generate the cut marker files overnight. It takes<br>
> about 45 seconds of human effort to confirm the cut locations and request the<br>
> modified file be saved. If you are willing to live with 90% accurate cuts, it<br>
> could all be automated. Networks have changed up the markers commonly searched<br>
> by VRDP and comskip to trick them into keeping commercials and removing some of<br>
> the desired content. Older stations with less money like RTV are almost 100%<br>
> accurate with cut locations.<br>
><br>
> At this point, my systems are almost automatic with just a few manual<br>
> "confirmation" places. WTV --> MPEG2 --> h.264/mkv with CC1 and CC3 closed<br>
> captions included. If there are multiple audio channels in the stream, that can<br>
> require special processing, but that usually happens with a few PBS programs<br>
> with audio tracks for the deaf or background-only audio.<br>
><br>
> I've blogged about almost all of these solutions over the years. The most recent<br>
> articles are about building your own DB4 antenna for $20 or so that actually<br>
> beat some Antennas Direct models.<br>
><br>
><br>
> And just to be clear, I also wimped out and use Windows7 to record TV. It is<br>
> just so easy to setup with free schedule data. That OS runs inside a virtual<br>
> machine under KVM and has been doing it nicely for over a year. THAT was not an<br>
> easy thing to accomplish to get satisfactory results. Microsoft did (does?) some<br>
> things trying to protect Joe-end-user from doing foolish things, like blocking<br>
> recording directly to NAS storage.<br>
><br>
> I suspect there are hundreds of years of knowledge lurking related to this problem.<br>
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><br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former<br>
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong<br>
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)<br>
<br>
(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to<br>
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy<br>
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)<br>
<br>
Ron Frazier<br>
<a href="tel:770-205-9422" value="+17702059422">770-205-9422</a> (O) Leave a message.<br>
linuxdude AT <a href="http://techstarship.com" target="_blank">techstarship.com</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>