Benefits of AVCHD Bluray/DVD burning in FCPX?

So i'm just starting to do some home videos of our child and I wanted to burn some playable disks to save to watch again in the future. I didn't want to burn a DVD because I don't want to take my nice HD footage and have it only presented in standard definition. But i also don't own a bluray burner and i don't want to buy those expensive disks. But I did notice there was a feature to burn AVCHD.

Does anyone know the limitations and benefits of burning archival footage as AVCHD?

It looks like it basically creates the footage as one big AVCHD packaged file just as it would on my SDHC cards from other AVCHD Camcorders. Does this mean it's a good archival way of saving footage, because it can be retained in HD, and it is still in a format that is easy to transfer into a NLE system? I know it will be compressed somewhat since it's taking 20 something GB's of my footage and putting it on a 4.7GB disk, but it still looks great.

Anyway, basically just looking for validation on when and when not to use it as a means of putting on a physical medium.

Thanks!

You can burn a "blueray player" compatible disk on on regular DVD disk it will only be limited in duration (around 30 minutes max. ) since the disk capacity is less... It will be a full HD Blueray formatted disk of the same quality as a regular blue ray disk. This can be done directly from inside FCPX with chapters BRAVO

Many simple options can selected to personalize the appearance of the startup menu :
Background picture , overlay Watermark title: but not much more.

Brady,
You should also be very aware that any dye based optical disks have a very limited shelf life. The dyes fade over time. Do not count on them lasting more than 5 years or so. Buying the best quality of DVDs will help, but it is not long term storage.
There is M-disk that promises long term, 1,000 year, storage.
Link… www.mdisc.com
You do need to purchase a M-Disk compatible burner, so you might as well get a BD burner and not compress your footage. 20GB>4.7GB is huge IMHO.
And no I am not receiving anything from M-Disk, just researched long term storage. It is problematic for us little people.

Hard drives are only good for about a year unless you power them up and re-juice the magnetic force, there is LTO tape storage, but it is $$$. The other alternative is cloud based storage where your files are hopefully protected via multiple backups and good maintenance.

Lastly, AVCHD is a proprietary format and subject to change, so it may or may not be useable long term. Unfortunately, this applies to lots of technology, formats, etc…

Hope this helps, Greg

I've got DVDs self-burned from over 15 years ago that are just fine. If you keep them stored properly, they actually have a shelf life of 50+ years.

VidGreg wrote: ...Hard drives are only good for about a year unless you power them up and re-juice the magnetic force....

This study "Predicting Archival Life of Removable Hard Disk Drives" found that 2.5" RDX HDD cartridges (which are based on 2.5" portable HDDs) if stored powered off for 30 years will have a 99% chance of retaining all data with no errors. They found that larger 3.5" HDDs have significantly poorer archival life, possibly due to the different head parking designs and other mechanical factors:

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&...vm=bv.87611401,d.eXY

Ben,
I also have older DVD/CDs that play just fine. I have also experienced failure in just a year or so. It is not a secure long term storage tech, especially for the OP that implies he wants to keep footage of growing kids.
There is definite quality differences in different brands and construction of optical media. Gold and silver reflective layers and type of dyes all make better discs. While I only mentioned one possible failure point, heat, humidity, oxidation, delamination of disk, deterioration of the polycarbonite layer, scratches can all affect the longevity of optical media.
While saying this, I will buy the cheapest out there for data I don't really care about. I also keep better quality discs for things I do care about or for sending out.
Yes proper storage helps, but is not a guarantee. Multiple copies stored separately, upright, in a case, protected from sunlight, excess humidity, careful handling will contribute to longer life. Maybe 50 years or longer, maybe not. When you get that, "this disk is not readable error", all goes out the window and you are left with your memory only.
It is not just my humble opinion, even manufactures like Sony and Panasonic recognize the problem and are working on new optical disk with better long term storage. M-Disc has already created their own and has been tested using very stressful techniques and approved by the U.S. Government .
If better technology is available, reasonable in cost, why not use it for those precious archives?

Ben, other posters opinions do not always require you to respond in negative language. We all have knowledge, experience to contribute. YMExperienceMV; and I appreciate your knowledge, but you are not always correct either. I often post just to add to the discussion what IMHO is a salient point for consideration, not necessarily a final definitive word. Being kind won't hurt anyone

Hope this helps, Greg

Joema,
Thanks for the link. Will read report.
This differs from what I have read before, so looking forward to it.
I would love to find reliable, cheap long term storage especially with large capacity. The biggest issue with M-Disk is capacity. They are working on larger capacity discs.
Sony and Panasonic are also working on large capacity optical disks with long term storage, so hopefully we will gain these advances soon. They say sometime this year, maybe.

Thanks, Greg

VidGreg wrote: ...Thanks for the link. Will read report.
This differs from what I have read before, so looking forward to it.
I would love to find reliable, cheap long term storage especially with large capacity....

Yes it differs from many common statements about HDD "bit rot". However if you backtrack those, they rarely state any credible references, they often are vague about operational life vs archival life, and they almost never differentiate between *types* of HDDs.

Since 2.5" drives are generally designed for laptop/mobile use they have entirely different head parking mechanisms. They use "ramp loading" so the heads are not parked on the disk surface like a 3.5" drive. They have much greater shock resistance and apparently much better non-operating archival durability.

The previously-listed research paper (although a few years old) was apparently the first ever published work on the archival durability of non-spinning HDDs. This shows there is very little formal data on this, so what's the source of all the other highly-confident statements about HDD archival "bit rot"? Some of those are coming from or heavily influenced by manufacturers, distributors or enthusiastic users of LTO tape.

I have a shelf full of archival HDDs, a mix of 2.5" and 3.5", some five years old. I recently pulled a five-year-old 3.5" unit which hadn't been spun up since 2009, and it worked fine. That said, if there's any validity to the above-listed paper it would make sense to migrate older external 3.5" drive content to 2.5" units. The 2.5" units are also a fraction of the volume, so they take much less space.

At a certain data volume it makes sense to use LTO tape, but this should be an informed decision not based on loose supposition about HDD archival durability. It also makes sense to err on the side of conservatism and not assume the archival storage will last forever, regardless of type.

Greg, may be I'm missing something, but what is negative about Ben's reply?

Ronald

"We all have knowledge, experience to contribute."

But mine is not relevant because why?