memory book, video editing, long term storage

I want to preserve my family memories. I made up a family tree and sent an empty book to the Grandfather. He's the last remaining from that generation on my side. He's 93, but he spent two years not doing anything with the book. I went up there and interviewed him for a few hours. I will fill in the book myself and then send it to my wife's last remaining Grandfather.

Here's the question. I recorded the video of the interview, and so did Tunawife. I have two files, one is huge, on my Pixel 4A. Tunawife has one big file on her iphone # (12?) from a different angle, and she got some stuff I didn't and also visa versa.

1: How do I edit the three huge files into something manageable and coherent? What's the easy button for video editing? I tried Canva, but the files were too big.

2: What's the best format, once we are done, for putting in the book? I want to tape an SD card or something in there, but what's future-proof? I guess most things are. If I bring a reel-reel to a place in 2023, they can still get it converted to something modern. Is that going to be the future? So if I put the files on a SD card, will someone be able to watch it in 2033? 2123?

Thanks

The biggest issue for long term storage is memory degradation.  Just about any modern memory has a relatively short shelf life in the grand scheme of things compared to say, paper.  This is why in many ways its easier to pay a backup service in the cloud to handle it for you as they have redundant backups and are constantly replacing the drives they are using.   You can of course do it yourself, but be prepared for significant time investment and an ongoing situation to manage, depending on how complex you want to go with it.

RE:  Video editing, I'm not sure the best tool.  

Shotcut is simple, but its been flaky for me sometimes.

Davinci resolve is insane overkill, but I'm sure it will work.

Both are free.

In reply to ProDarwin :

An online backup is attractive, but will that service remain online for a hundred years or more? How do I pay for it in perpetuity?

In reply to tuna55 :

Will your SD card remain for a 100 years or more? Absolutely not. Nothing is forever. I've had things backed up on google for 15+ years now, which is alot longer than any other physical storage items I own. 

That sounds like an awesome memory for you all to have for the future, it's something I wish I would have done with my grandparents. 
 

For editing the video, I use Adobe Premiere Pro but it is not free, you can subscribe for a month or two so you basically rent the software for as long as you need while you are editing. 
The biggest problem you will probably run into will be combining different formats the phones shoot video in if that is an issue. There are easy ways around it but just something to be aware of. 
I know people that edit on Davinci resolve and say good things about it but I don't have experience with it, I also agree it's probably overkill for what your looking to do. 
 

As for storage I second keeping it on the cloud, put it along with the raw files in a Dropbox, Google drive or similar system. You can also upload the final version to a YouTube account as a private video so only people you want to see the video could have access to it. 

Shotcut or ffmpeg can downscale the video. For long-term preservation, burn it to an M-disc. The cheapest way to burn small numbers of those is to find a shop that can do it.

Hey another question.

Is there any way, without doing a terrible impression of a stenographer, to turn this into a written transcript? I tried Word's dictate function without much help.

For reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VljxTyke24

There are automated transcription tools available, such as the one that generates Youtube's closed captions. You can rip YouTube's captions with tools such as this: https://www.downloadyoutubesubtitles.com/ and then just touch them up manually.

I would also add a USB to SD card reader ,  but then what format do you think will be used in 10-20 years or longer ?    MP3 or ???

GameboyRMH said:

There are automated transcription tools available, such as the one that generates Youtube's closed captions. You can rip YouTube's captions with tools such as this: https://www.downloadyoutubesubtitles.com/ and then just touch them up manually.

That worked, but whoa, the website threw up all manner of spam at my work PC.

Did Youtube get rid of the ability to rotate videos? That is going to be tough...

Rotate as in turn them 90 degrees etc? Shotcut or ffmpeg can do that.

I have tried using Shotcut a few times. It is quite easy to use, even if you are just starting with it. Plus, it's free, works on Linux, and doesn't add watermarks to your videos.

Let me rephrase:

I only have a work computer, and I cannot download any software.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpLP_i0R6ZwfzGI724C34B7VRNSDvKPH3&si=UeFaZ4o2IyxPIMdo

Not being able to download any software will make things difficult...there are some online video conversion services available but they'll run into size limits very quickly. If getting your own PC isn't an option you might want to consider a cloud VPS, a Windows VPS is pretty cheap on Azure.