OK, probably getting myself more confused than I need to but I know you good good people will help me out.

I use a Sony SR100 and love it. After a few shaky starts I am now using VS to make some nice looking (title page etc) DVDs. All good.

I have got to the stage where I want to back up files etc in case of a DVD suddenly going bad, laptop hard drive crash etc etc. So....

I have all the MPEG2 "individual" files for each bit of film I have shot. No problem, I can back those up as MPEG2s on an external hard drive.

Using VS I normally pull those individual files together to make a clip (for example, Christmas 2008). As I chose to keep properties the same, again, I assume i could then just save that complete project file as an MPEG2 with no difficulty (and probably actually therefore delete the individual files I referred to above...ie each seperate bit of film that made up Christmas 2008).

This is where I get confused. When I totally finish a project in VS, I have maybe four or five clips on one DVD, a title page, music, the works .... can I save that on a hard drive as a complete entity. In other words, if I connect an external media player to the external hard drive I could just play it off that the same as the DVD would be. And I would have the file to burn additional "finished product" DVDs - or does that have to be done through VS each time.

Not sure if that's entirely clear but any thoughts appreciated.

How about creating an ISO file when you are creating a DVD? That would allow you to create additional DVD's.

I also make an extra DVD backup caude I know one of my xdfn'';h relatives will misplace the one I mailed them... An extra backup is good to be able to copy.

Sometimes if I do a lot of editing, I make a DV AVI file of the entire video, so I can encode it again or maybe to another format like .WMV for viewing on a computer.

Yes, I am a bit confused after over five years of doing this. I have plenty of backups, just no specific workflow for everything. It was so much easier in the days of VHS and 8mm film....



Rich

__________________
FireWire Survey