The best way to archive videos

Magnetic tape demagnetizes slowly over time and the polymer degrades as well.

You need to have a redundant backup strategy. You need at least three copies of your data, so three drives. As the drives age and fail, you get a new drive and copy your data on to it. This way you are continually renewing your storage and keeping it alive.

[quote] I need to be able to read the content years from now

You ask NOW so you could view THEN?

A picture is the death of a memory. Let it go.

The list is alive!

MP4, OP?

It seems to me, OP, that your best bet is to copy your data to multiple formats, and then follow R2's advice.

People can roll their eyes at physical media now all they want, but I have cd-rs and dvd-rs from the early 2000s that are still viable and are holding my data with no problem. They're not my only copies anymore, but they're still working. Invest in some medical-grade blank dvd-rs, which are manufactured to exacting standards and meant to have a very long archival life (as they're used for medical records and imaging), or Verbatim M-discs, something like that, and transfer your stuff to them. That's one hard copy format. Dvds may be fading but dvd players/drives are not going to disappear entirely, just like turntables didn't. Then get the multiple hard drives that R2 suggests, and do another transfer. DO NOT buy three of the same brand/model of hard drive - do your research for quality, but choose different kinds, and consider buying them from different stores. That way if there's a defect or problem with one that's connected to the model/brand or a particular batch at one store, you still have others that won't have those problems. The same could apply to the blank dvds.

Some people recommend buying a PC whose SOLE function is to be your media computer, for storing and playing videos or music. That's along the lines of the hard dives, but it's another option.

Thank you, R7 and r2. So it's not quite "write the data copy once and don't think about it for years". One needs to be relatively active the following years (and re-copy the data if needed). But if that's the price for true media persistence, so be it.

Yes, OP. It's something that does need to be revisited periodically - NONE of this kind of storage is foolproof; all have the potential for corruption, erosion or failure due to various factors, so in preserving precious data, that always has to be minimized however you can. I used to be active a number of years ago in communities for both collecting of rare films and blank media/recording, and the people there would make multiple copies of their stuff using more than one high-quality brand of blank media, check on them periodically for corruption, and re-copy every so often. They would make a 'watching' copy that they didn't mind knocking around and scratching, additionally. They would also rip digital copies and store them as files. To them it was worth it to maintain the integrity of stuff that couldn't be replaced easily, even though obviously it takes some effort. I still do that with the music I've been collecting for like 20 years now - maintain 'hard' data discs in addition to hard drives. As long as you've got one version that can still be read, you can always transfer it as needed, and having multiple formats increases your chances of being able to do so.

The vendor at the link is a good source of archival blank media:

My company has data tapes that it can no longer read, Not because the tape have gone bad, but because the company replaced the tape drives without copying all the data to the new media.

Survivalist?