I am starting to convert 8mm home video over to a digital format for long term storage and future editing. I am looking for advise on the best method for doing this. I started doing a few conversion and results seem good, but just want to make sure before I invest even more time. Here is my information.
Tape / camera Format:
8mm - Video shot from 1990 through 1998? with Sony 8mm camcorder, not sure of model.
8mm - Digital - Video shot with a Sony digital 8 TRV520 camcorder 1998 through 2008?
mini DV digital cassette - Video shot with Cannon ZR900 2008 - 2012
I have approximately 100 tapes to convert.
My current method is using the Sony digital 8 DCR-TRV520 camcorder to input the video using Premiere Elements 10. I plan to use the Canon ZR900 for the mini DV tapes with the same settings.
Project settings:
DV NTSC 29.97 frames / second
Frame size 720 horizontal 480 vertical
Pixel Aspect Ratio: D1/DV NTSC (0.9091)
Fields: Lower Field First
Display Format : 30 fps Drop-Frame time code
After capturing the video, (No editing at this time), In Premiere Elements I use the "Share" AVI setting and create an AVI file using the preset DV NTSC Standard. I then save this file on to my hard drive. The file is quite large 27 GB for about a 2 hour video.
I have downloaded the file on to a jump drive and played it on my laptop which was hooked to my TV. It seemed good quality for a 27 year old video. I would like to edit these files in the future and pull them back into Premiere elements.
Questions
1. Does this seem like a good method for long term preservation of family videos?
2. Are AVI files easy to pull back into Premiere Elements for editing in the future, and will the quality be about the same as the initial capture?
3. Are the project settings for the 8mm / digital 8mm / and mini DV tapes the same in Premiere Elements.