What is the Best File Format to Preserve Home Movies?

I have a box full of Hi-8 tapes of home movies I want to archive somehow before the camera breaks and the footage is unplayable. I know that my number one priority is preserving quality and I would also like to be able to edit the footage in the future. Luckily I have a Sony Digital Handicam that has firewire (iLink) output to my computer. So, the main question for me to decide is what file format is the best quality?

I spent a lot of time researching and testing file formats. Every format has it's benefits and drawbacks. Windows media player imports as WMV files and imovie uses MOV files, but I want something I can use with more advanced editing programs. After researching based on my needs I found that the DV-AVI format was the best option.

AVI files (with the DV codec) are the best format to keep your home movies on your computer because it offers the least amount of quality loss to your footage and the best compatibility with most editing programs. Also, some advanced editing programs will capture in this format. However, DV-AVI files are very large (about 14 GB for each hour of footage, depending on the bitrate) so you need to ask yourself, what do you plan to do with your footage?

If you are going to edit the footage in Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Pinnacle, Final Cut, Cyberlink, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or another editing program, DV-AVI files will work flawlessly. They will not slow down your computer as much as more compressed file formats or degrade in quality as quickly.

Once the project is edited, however, you still need to ask what is the best format to export your video. Do you export it as DV-AVI to preserve the quality? Do you plan on exporting the video to DVD? Do you want it on the computer only? Is it only for posting online at YouTube?

For my project, I feel it is worth purchasing a 1 TB drive to keep the files on. For now I know that I have the highest quality file format for the footage and I can choose what to do with it later. Since my Hi-8 media became extinct, if I were to burn everything to DVD the same thing will happen in the next 10 years. By having the footage as a digital file it will be preserved in the industry standard AVI format. Yes, there are more advanced file formats out there for HD footage, but I am positive the AVI format will be around longer than DVD players will. Now I have the footage to do what I want with it. For example, I may edit the footage into smaller montages that I burn to DVD to show the family. I may convert the original footage to a more compressed format once I have edited the footage to save space. I may also burn DVDs of the raw footage just to archive (even though it will be lower quality). By using the AVI format I have all options available.