NBC TODAY: Preserving Your Home Movies

While Kodak moments may last a lifetime, you may be surprised to know that the home videos you made this holiday season will be lucky to last 15 years. BestStuff's Corey Greenberg will be on the NBC TODAY Show December 26th demonstrating a number of new ways to preserve your home movies for generations to come.

Videotape has a lifespan of anywhere from five to 15 years. Your tapes will last a little longer if they are regularly "exercised" to prevent magnetic signals from "bleeding" from one strand of tape to another. A tape can be exercised by playing it or by simply fast-forwarding and rewinding the tape. Those wanting to preserve the contents of a tape should copy the tape at least every five years. The problem is each item you copy from VHS 8mm and VHS-C's it degrades the tape. Anyone who has copied an analog video tape (VHS or 8 mm, for example) will know that a copy (called second generation) made from the original will have worse picture quality than the original. Make a copy (called third generation) from the copy, and picture quality suffers even more. Each generation away from the original creates a progressively worse copy. Eventually, the image breaks up. How many generations away from the original this takes depends on the quality of the original and the equipment used.

The new generation of tape is mini DV-- while it's still tape, and like the aforementioned degrades over time, it records digitally (1's ands 0's) so you do not lose quality when transferring. What's best about mini DV is its digital transferring to a computer is simple. This makes digital recording almost immune to signal problems, and results in the highest quality picture and audio. This is a major advantage over analog. Digital is the language of computers. Computers easily store and transfer binary signals, from machine to machine, disk to disk, hard drive to floppy disk -- without distortion. It is exactly the same with digital video. The digital video signal is free of the problems encountered by an analog signal when it is copied. Using digital connecting cables (FIRE WIRE IEEE 1394), you can dub multiple generations without signal or quality loss. If a digital video signal is being transferred, say from a DVC camcorder to a DVC VCR, the signal does not go through any conversion process, it flows directly from tape to tape as a digital signal.

New Camcorders


Sony D8 Camcorder
Records digitally on existing hi 8mm tape -- closest to digital of the new camcorder batch and great for those who own existing library of 8MM videotapes and want to transfer to digital. $900 - $1400. www.sel.sony.com




Canon Elura 2
Canon's mini DV camcorders are the best in the business -- one wire transfer to your PC, on board editing. $1600. www.canondv.com




SONY DV Camcorder with MPEG Movie
This DV foreshadows the eventual move from tape to hard drive media. It has a memory stick slot that allows you to record short movies. Unfortunately, memory standards are still not big enough to warrant a memory stick only unit, but it's coming. $1400 - $3200. www.sel.sony.com




Hitachi DVD Camcorder
Perhaps the shape of things to come, this DVD camcorder records movies on DVD to offer preservation. Video cassettes have a fifty, maybe at best a seventy year lifespan. In time, the glue binding the magnetic oxide to the plastic backing dries out and a tape full of memories becomes a pile of oxide signifying nothing. This is true of all tape regardless of format or brand. Dust to dust, they say. DVD like all laser oriented optical media (CDs, Videodiscs, CD-ROMs), has an estimated life span of at least 400 years. Clearly, DVD will be a lifeboat technology that will save a lot of videotape based images and sounds. www.hitachi.com



Devices for Preserving Video on Longer Lasting Media

The CD-R media manufacturers have performed extensive media longevity studies using these industry defined tests and mathematical modeling techniques, with results claiming longevity from 70 years to over 200 years. The primary caveat is how you handle and store the media. With proper handling and storage, your CD-Rs will outlive you.

The best news about preserving your videos is the new generation of computers equipped out of the box with movie editing software. While Apple blazed the trail with its iMovie iMacs and iBooks, PC manufacturers are close behind. Look for PCs with recordable DVD drives next month that will truly revolutionize video storage on the PC.


Apple iBook
The Apple iBook comes with iMovie software preinstalled to make movie making easier than ever. It also features a 366MHz PowerPC G3, 256K on-chip L2 cache, 64MB SDRAM memory, CD-ROM drive, 8MB video memory, 56K modem, Composite video output, USB port and FireWire port. $1500. www.apple.com




Dell 8100
The Pentium 4 based Dell Dimension 8100 delivers three times the bandwith of Pentium III systems. The Dimension 8100 also offers the option of Dell Movie Studio to create your own movies at home. It features four USB ports, 4X AGB graphics card, and RDRAM memory up to 1GB. Priced from $1900. www.dell.com




Dazzle Digital Video Creator II
Provides the easiest way to capture, edit and share video with friends and family. Features scrolling titles, background music and voice-over narration. Share movies with others via tape, CD, DVDs, e-mail, or post to your personal web page at the Dazzle Webcast Theater. $300. www.dazzlemultimedia.com