Any home video junkies?

[ruxCYtable]

I'm trying to catch up on editing about four years of home videos that are sitting on my hard drive. I am wondering about how to store them permanently when I am finished.

Some I have saved as disc images (iso's) and some I have saved in their native wmv format. I use Mozy to back them up online. The disc images are handy because if I need to burn a quick copy for a relative or if one of my own gets damaged I can do it quickly. The wmv files, though, seem to take up less space and I'm wondering if I should leave them in a format that can be streamed in the future from my pc direct to my TV (I don't currently have the equipment to do this but I'm sure we all will eventually) since discs will probably eventually become obsolete.

Any other home video junkies out there with thoughts?

[labontefan31]

I would get an external hard-drive specifically for your home movies and put them all on there. I like to keep my files in the mp4 format because it uses less space and still keeps its quality, plus it's a flexible format.

I rarelly burn any of my files to dvd's so I'm not sure what would be best for that

[iahawkhunter]

I would second the external hard drive recommendation. I would add, though, that you shouldn't have it plugged into your computer and running unless you're actively getting data from it (or writing to it). The external drive will act as a backup, and the less you use it the less chance there is for it to have a hardware failure. A particular concern of mine with any external hard drive is overheating (I've toasted them before). This can be avoided by placing the unit in a position where it has some open space around it (e.g., pushed to the back of a bookshelf and wedged between books is NOT a good place for it).

Regarding format, I would recommend keeping the files in the highest-quality form for which you are willing to sacrifice disc space (usually quality increases require size increases). You can always take a high-quality, large file and make a low-quality, small version later. But once you down-convert you can't "reinflate" it later. If you're going to watch a video on your computer (or TV), you'll want better than the quality which is optimized for web streaming.

[mclatch]

I keep all mine in the native format and just rename the file to something meaningful/descriptive. My wife organizes the files/folders on the computer so we can easily watch them on TV through the PS3 or Wii. I bought a 2TB hard drive for storing all these movies as carbonite won't back up an external USB hard drive.