So with a 6 month-old at home, we've been plowing through video tapes and memory cards like nobody's business. With photos, no problem. The pics get loaded onto the HTPC and backed up by the file server nightly. 

As you may or may not know, there are a wealth of options available when unloading video from a digital camcorder.  Previously, I've been using Windows Movie Maker or whatever it is to save the videos in a VBR WMA format that keeps file sizes small, but the video quality is less than ideal.  However, to archive the originals, I've just been putting aside the used Mini-DV tapes, which I plan to keep in a safe as a backup.  However, the tapes are expensive as well.  So that got me thinking, would it be better to save the videos in full quality on my HTPC and have them backed up on my server than it would be to save the original tapes as backups?

Here are the numbers: 

Each MiniDV tape has space for 60 mins at full quality. 

I can buy a 10 pack of MiniDV tapes at sam's for $37 including tax & shipping.

That's basically $3.70 per hour of tape

When uncompressed, 60 minutes of full-quality video takes up 12.1GB of hard drive space (in DV-AVI format)

A 500GB hard drive (which let's say costs $110) actually has 465GB of usuable space.

That means each GB costs 24 cents

Each hour of video (12.1GB of space) costs $2.86 

So, on the surface, it would seem it's cheaper to use the hard drives.  However, there are a few things that are not considered here. 

#1, it costs money to add hard drives beyond the drive itself.  Even though today I could go and buy a new 500GB hard drive and stick it in my file server, I can't do that forever without upgrading the case/power supply and adding additional controller cards when I run out of SATA ports on my motherboard. 

#2, There is additional space used by the hard drive method because, as I mentioned, my HTPC is backed up to the file server nightly.  However, it is not a 1:1 relationship....the back ups are much smaller than the original files, so it would be difficult to determine exactly how much space is used would be difficult.

#3, It would be nice to have full-quality videos available 24/7 on my HTPC instead of cut-down compressed quality

#4, the price of hard drives will go down, whereas the price of MiniDV may not.  So, over the long haul, hard drives may continue to become cheaper.  That seems more feasible than the cost of MiniDV tapes going down, anyway.

#5, MiniDV tapes can be stored in a fireproof safe.  Hard drives, even though they are backed up, are subject to the musings of the power grid, and are always subject to other failures.  Even if the backups work correctly, a hard drive will not last forever, and will eventually need to be replaced.  A "stored" mini-DV tape would not need replacing.

 #6, when pressed for time, it's easier to run by the store and pick up more MiniDV tapes (though this method is more expensive) than it is to unload the video onto a computer to free up space on a tape. 

So, with these factors in mind, I believe I have decided to store the MiniDV tapes themselves.  One thing I haven't considered is there may be other ways to archive essentially "lossless" archive-quality video in a format other than DV-AVI such as Divx or Xvid that would require less drive space and thus be less expensive.  I will attempt to play with these options some more since it would be beneficial to know this information for the "on-line" copies of the videos I will be keeping on my HTPC.  Anybody have any other suggestions?

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