Safeguarding My Investment

Sorry to bother the members of this group, but I'm in a bit of a quandary.

You see, I collect DVDs of television shows. I currently have 46 seasons of
various shows (Five each of Babylon 5 and Friends, for example). Even using
a conservative estimate of $40 paid for each box, I've suck nearly two
thousand dollars into my collection.

I'd like to back them up to a more stable medium: a hard disk. (I have
PowerDVD, and I've heard that it can play the source DVD files directly
from the HD.)

No piracy is intended; I simply want to prolong the lifespan of my
investment.

Which program could best accomplish my aims?

Confessor

"Confessor" <> wrote in message
news:Xns951C740AB8DABconfessor@130.81.64.196...
> Sorry to bother the members of this group, but I'm in a bit of a quandary.
>
> You see, I collect DVDs of television shows. I currently have 46 seasons
of
> various shows (Five each of Babylon 5 and Friends, for example). Even
using
> a conservative estimate of $40 paid for each box, I've suck nearly two
> thousand dollars into my collection.
>
> I'd like to back them up to a more stable medium: a hard disk. (I have
> PowerDVD, and I've heard that it can play the source DVD files directly
> from the HD.)
>
> No piracy is intended; I simply want to prolong the lifespan of my
> investment.
>
> Which program could best accomplish my aims?

DVDShrink and DVD Decrypter, both free.

But consider that a 6-disk season set could fill 40-50GB of hard disk space.
That's a pretty expensive backup, especially when you consider the question
"how many 10 year old hard drives are still in service?"

RichC

Rich Clark

"Confessor" <> wrote in message
news:Xns951C740AB8DABconfessor@130.81.64.196...

> I'd like to back them up to a more stable medium: a hard disk. (I have
> PowerDVD, and I've heard that it can play the source DVD files directly
> from the HD.)

I'd question the validity that hard drives are somehow more stable than
removable media storage (i.e., the DVD disc). Your hard drive will eventually
crash, probably within ten years whereas, properly taken care of, your DVDs
should last five times as long. Assuming that there's a format that will play
them in fifty years, of course.

Kevin "Ziploc" Cogliano

madkevin

Kevin Wrote:

> I'd question the validity that hard drives are somehow more stable
> than removable media storage (i.e., the DVD disc). Your hard drive
> will eventually crash, probably within ten years whereas, properly
> taken care of, your DVDs should last five times as long. Assuming that
> there's a format that will play them in fifty years, of course.

Properly taken care of... there's the rub.

I receive my box sets from Amazon.com, and depending on the type of
packaging used (Babylon 5 or C.S.I-style is best, Buffy & Angel are
worst), I can usually expect at least one disk to be already damaged upon
receipt.

Fortunately, Amazon's return policy for items that arrive damaged is
quite lenient, but the sheer number of skip/jump problems necessitating
replacement that I've experienced lately have made me somewhat leery of
the fragility of the DVD medium.

Whereas I've never had a hard drive fail on me...

I don't doubt your analysis of their comparative longevity, it's just
that my personal experiences have suggested differently.

Another problem with DVD archival is that home DVD burners can't burn
disks of adequate size; a lossless copy would have to be spread across
two disks.

Is there a dependable removeable storage medium with the capacity
necessary to store the contents of a DVD without data loss (call it 8 or
9 gigabytes)?

Because failing that, I'll probably stick with my plan for storing my
collection across several hard discs.

I hesitate to say that "money is no object," since the last time I said
that somebody tried to sell me a $30,000 piano, but suffice to say that
I'll probably have enough money to realize whatever storage scheme I
eventually choose.

Thank you for your help, and I'm sorry for bothering you & then pooping
on your answer.

Confessor

"Confessor" <> wrote in message
news:Xns951C740AB8DABconfessor@130.81.64.196...
> Sorry to bother the members of this group, but I'm in a bit of a quandary.
>
> You see, I collect DVDs of television shows. I currently have 46 seasons
of
> various shows (Five each of Babylon 5 and Friends, for example). Even
using
> a conservative estimate of $40 paid for each box, I've suck nearly two
> thousand dollars into my collection.
>
> I'd like to back them up to a more stable medium: a hard disk. (I have
> PowerDVD, and I've heard that it can play the source DVD files directly
> from the HD.)
>
> No piracy is intended; I simply want to prolong the lifespan of my
> investment.
>
> Which program could best accomplish my aims?

Why not wait 6 months till prices of dvd-r layered burners (will be able to
hold 8-9 gig) start coming down and buy one for backing up purposes.

Its got to be cheaper than all those hard drives....

Robotman.

Robotman

Confessor wrote:
> Fortunately, Amazon's return policy for items that arrive damaged is
> quite lenient, but the sheer number of skip/jump problems necessitating
> replacement that I've experienced lately have made me somewhat leery of
> the fragility of the DVD medium.
>

They should make you more leery of mail-order, not DVDs. There's no
trick to properly handling and storing DVDs, they're not like ancient
parchments or anything. Don't touch the surface, touch only the inner
and outer edges, don't set discs down on a table, don't bend them
(especially don't fight to get them out of a case, fight with the hub,
not the disc), and follow proper cleaning instructions (if necessary).

The next generation of movie discs promise to be even stabler.

> I don't doubt your analysis of their comparative longevity, it's just
> that my personal experiences have suggested differently.
>

Big tv box sets are a problem, and the more big tv box sets you buy the
more errors you're likely to run into. Why? Because they're often
packed by hand. Sometimes you'll find fingerprints on a brand new disc.
And here you are, buying them from mail order where it'll be used for
floor hockey by the postal service before shipping? Disgusting.

Okay, seriously, I buy most DVDs from mail-order also. I have about 200
movies, series, and sets in all (don't know how many discs exactly), and
I've only had two discs go bad, that I can think of. One is Double
Indemnity, a currently OOP title that seems to have a rot problem.
T'other is a disc of DS9 (season five). One episode has a bad spot that
I have to chapter skip ahead of.

Put it this way, if a disc is bad, 99.999% of the time it's because of
the way it was handled (touching, scratching, bending, temperature, etc).

Genuine cases of DVD rot (the modern version of laser rot) are so rare
that even some experts say it's a myth.

> I hesitate to say that "money is no object," since the last time I said
> that somebody tried to sell me a $30,000 piano, but suffice to say that
> I'll probably have enough money to realize whatever storage scheme I
> eventually choose.
>

Question. Given that you're willing to spend heaps of dough (I don't
see you doing what you intend without spending AT LEAST the same you've
paid for your whole collection) to save these discs with the intention
that you can replace bad ones five or ten years down the road, why not
just buy a new disc if the old ones go bad?

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

Grand Inquisitor

Grand Inquisitor <> wrote in news:K13Gc.184219
$:

> Question. Given that you're willing to spend heaps of dough (I don't
> see you doing what you intend without spending AT LEAST the same you've
> paid for your whole collection) to save these discs with the intention
> that you can replace bad ones five or ten years down the road, why not
> just buy a new disc if the old ones go bad?

I'm searching for a LONG-term storage solution. I just want to ensure that
my backup copies will be available long-term, when the original sets may be
out of print.

I was not aware that layered DVD burners for home use are currently in
development, and I'll probably end up using that as a storage solution
instead.

What I'm REALLY waiting for are shows that can be bought directly from the
web and simply re-downloaded for a nominal bandwidth charge if the original
copy becomes corrupted.

Confessor

Confessor wrote:
> I'm searching for a LONG-term storage solution. I just want to ensure that
> my backup copies will be available long-term, when the original sets may be
> out of print.
>
> I was not aware that layered DVD burners for home use are currently in
> development, and I'll probably end up using that as a storage solution
> instead.
>
> What I'm REALLY waiting for are shows that can be bought directly from the
> web and simply re-downloaded for a nominal bandwidth charge if the original
> copy becomes corrupted.

DVDs *are* long-term storage! Like I said, it depends on the handling,
how it was packed, if the hub is weak and the disc slides around inside
the case, etc.

BTW, the next generation of movie discs (I hesitate to call them DVDs
because Sony's Blu-ray appears to be winning favor with studio heads and
the like over Toshiba's HD-DVD) will be able to contain an entire tv
season on one disc (assuming the show is in standard definition). Won't
that be nifty?

Ironic that you're "Confessor" and I'm "Grand Inquisitor."

--

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in
Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned
out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"

--C.S. Lewis

Grand Inquisitor

In article <>,
says...
>
> "Confessor" <> wrote in message
> news:Xns951C740AB8DABconfessor@130.81.64.196...
>
> > I'd like to back them up to a more stable medium: a hard disk. (I have
> > PowerDVD, and I've heard that it can play the source DVD files directly
> > from the HD.)
>
> I'd question the validity that hard drives are somehow more stable than
> removable media storage (i.e., the DVD disc). Your hard drive will eventually
> crash, probably within ten years whereas, properly taken care of, your DVDs
> should last five times as long. Assuming that there's a format that will play
> them in fifty years, of course.

Well, there's the benefit of "once it's loaded on the hard drive, you
can easily migrate the data". One time of swapping disks, and from then
on out he can migrate it forward to the next terabyte hard drive or the
holo-crystal storage cube or whatever.

I've just lived with the risk, and figure that $40 or so to replace a
disk that really gets screwed up is lower than the time and money spent
on insurance against such a thing.

Now if some form of "rot" sets in, then I'll be a little ****ed.

--
Cranial Crusader dgh 1138 at bell south point net

Dale Hicks

>Properly taken care of... there's the rub.

But here's the thing. Properly taking care of a disc only involves holding a
disc by the edges when handling and placing them only in the player or in the
storage case. When storing the case, simply store in a cool and dry place.

That's it. That's all I do to take care of my discs and they are still
immaculate.

>Fortunately, Amazon's return policy for items that arrive damaged is
>quite lenient, but the sheer number of skip/jump problems necessitating
>replacement that I've experienced lately have made me somewhat leery of
>the fragility of the DVD medium.

Well, think about what a DVD boxset goes through when it is shipped if
contained within a substandard shipping container.

As for fragility, again, as long as you handle discs by adhering to
easy-to-follow directions, you should not have a problem.

>Whereas I've never had a hard drive fail on me...

Don't jinx your luck.

I've had a 1 GB hard disk fail on me after about seven years of service. The
clusters started to time out and fail, which is one of the signs of a worn hard
disk. I also had a 6.4 GB hard disk that was recalled due to a failing IC
which keeps the drive from spinning up. Unfortunately, the IC had failed with
my data still inside! I was able to swap boards between my usable drive and
the replacement since they were the same model, but the point is you never know
what events will transpire to cause you to lose your data.

If hard drives are expected to be totally reliable, then why are hard disk
failures one of the reasons to make backup copies of a computer? - Reinhart

LASERandDVDfan