Camorder videos...?

Question

hi,

i have just bought a new hdd camcorder(sony handycam dcr-sr62) and need to back up my videos, with out taking up much space on my computers hard drive, what is the best compression software? i really need the space and the videos, please help, thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Video from a hard drive camcorder is already compressed.

You have two options:

1) Archive the video to optical disc (and hope they don't get scratched or get disc-rot).

2) Use an external drive - minimum size 500 gig.

You just discovered another reason why hard drive camcorders are not a good idea - and miniDV tape camcorders are... The miniDV tape is the archive. Just lock it and don't re-use it... no need for an extra archive step... And yes, miniDV tape does provide better Digital Video quality because DV is much less compressed than that MPEG2 file from your SR62. More compression = reduced video quality.