I am starting a summer project of transferring all of my analog and digital tapes to preserve them on disk. As I write this I am beginning the tedious task of capturing the video and saving them in .mpg files onto my hard drive. I plan to use bits and pieces of many of them to create some family movies at some point, but I'd like to copy ALL of the separate files onto discs and be able to use them separately (if that is the right term) at a later date in case my hard drive becomes full or if I just want to share a couple of the files. If I put several of the files on the timeline and produce/create a file, won't they all be combined to 1 file and I wouldn't be able to use them separately? If that is the case, would I use PD7 to save them or just copy each one separately using a file burning program?

Second, if I can use PD7 to produce/create a file and keep all of the files separate, which format would you recommend - .avi, mpeg-1, mpeg-2, etc. to save them in?

Thanks,
Cindy