I just finished editing a 10 minute short film and wanted to output the highest quality uncompressed file to save as a back-up for my archive. I tried doing an 'animation' in quicktime movie format, and the resulting file was 30 gb and wouldn't play back without skipping. Is this normal? Is there a better format for archiving?

You're not going to see smooth playback of an uncompressed video file on an average PC.

But you are correct in saving an uncompressed copy for your archive.

Good to know. Then what would be the best format for the archival? Animation, 8-bit, 10-bit.. what is the difference? Thanks

You can save it with no codec setting per say. Just keep it in a format you work in.

Just select quicktime and no compression if you edit with .mov files.

yeah, my raw files are .mov as I imported them from memory cards. Its also HD. What about saving to tape? Is that uncompressed? And can you do that with HD movies?

You could save to tape, but tape is a degradable medium.

Get a few dual layer DVDs and burn everything to that. Or get a blu-ray burner? Thats a good $180 investment.
Either way, make more than one copy and store them in different places.

10 minutes of 10 bit uncompressed HD video will take up about 80 GB. The animation codec will take up less space but add artifacts, not really noticeable until you zoom in to a still. A 250 GB passport drive is like $90.