iMovie or not? - Better format for preservation of family videos

Hi, Bondia,

There is no real answer, here. Basically, it is not realistic that any one media storage device will protect and provide access to your media for long term, like 20 years. Safest is to follow the rule of 3, and store in the cloud, optical disc, and physical drive. They each have their pros and cons. Right now the most universal format is Mp4, that you would get if you exported from iMovie with the High Quality setting. However, every 3 years or so you should refurbish and copy to whatever storage types and formats are available at the time. The digital world constantly mutates, with formats and storage devices becoming obsolete. Optical drives may not be available in 10 years. Hard drives deteriorate every 3-5 years. Optical discs can be scratched. All physical storage types can become damaged in a fire or flood. Physical storage media can be stolen or misplaced. Safest to store at least one copy in a secure place off-premises. A cloud storage provider possibly will no longer be around in 10 years. And if you encrypt, passwords can be lost. Storing in the cloud can also have issues with access by your heirs, so you need to carefully read the terms and conditions of the cloud storage provider and set your preferences accordingly.

Take a look at the excellent discussion in this link, and I think that all or most of your questions will be answered:

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/whats-the-best-long-term-physical-storage-device.252008/

My take, and it's just mine because others may disagree, is that I would edit your vids with iMovie and export at the High Quality setting, that will give you Mp4 videos. Keep duplicates of your original unedited media. Mp4 is a high quality viewing format that is very popular and used at the moment. Store the media following the rule of 3 mentioned above. I think at the moment that a physical drive would provide the easiest access for your family, and the media could always be uploaded to the cloud from there or physically transferred to family members by thumb drive or disc, or burned to optical disc for distribution. You can't count on physical drives not to fail after 3-5 years. So always refurbish and recopy from time to time, and keep a master duplicate of your original unedited vids, as copying can cause some deterioration in itself.

-- Rich

What format are you starting with? i.e. what format is the digitised VHS?

Open one of the digitized files in QuickTime Player and go to top menu and click on WINDOW>SHOW MOVIE INSPECTOR.

You will see something like this, in this example the format is DV.

A screen shot of your inspector would be good.

I store my movies in duplicate on separate external drives. A few months ago, drive #1 that I had bought 3 years ago started showing signs of failing (strange error messages). So I bought a new drive and copied over the duplicate movies from drive #2 to the new drive (drive #3). Then I took the failing drive drive #1 out of service. That's the way it goes with storing videos on physical drives. You've got to keep constantly renewing. You cannot toss them in a drawer with any confidence that they will be playable in a few years. So even if I had tossed the drive into a drawer, I would need to remember to renew them every three years or so. If by unlikely chance that the Mp4 format was no longer in use, I could convert to the current format. Takes a little vigilance.

Optical discs have a much longer life span. But one must have an optical burner to burn the movies to the optical disc. Or, one can take the original footage to a service that will copy them over for you. While better for long term storage, accessibility can be limited if one does not have a DVD-Blue Ray planer. No way of telling whether those would even be available in 20 years.

-- Rich

You would probably lose a bit of quality with Faster Compression vs. Better Quality compression. From what I have read there isn't that much difference. However, whether the difference is significant to you is really your call. I suggest that you take a 2 minute snippet of your master video, put it into a newly created project, and then export it at Faster Compression and then again at Better Quality compression. Compare the two exported videos and see which one that you prefer. As to the rendering time difference, since this project is somewhat of a labor of love you might not care much about that. Again, up to you. If I were doing it, I would go with Better Quality compression.

As for saving in iCloud, I'm not sure whether you can upload from an external drive. I wasn't able to do it myself. But then, I don't use the Cloud much. However, I would not store your videos in iCloud. iCloud is not a storage device but rather is a syncing device. If you intend to store in the cloud you should purchase a separate service from a third party provider that provides for cloud storage.

-- Rich

You are very welcome Diane.

I don't know of what cloud storage service vendors there might be out there. If you post that question in a separate post there may be others on this forum who will chime in.

Good luck with your project. Looks like you'll be letting the vids render overnight.

-- Rich

Have a happy holiday season!

-- Rich