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Digital Gumbo:
Mail-in DVD Transfer Houses: Preserving your videos on disc just got easier
02.05.04
Is your wedding video or kids' birthdays on VHS? Think they'll last forever? Think again! Ten years from now you'll be lucky to find a VCR, but it won't matter. By then, odds are your tapes will be ruined.
If you have treasured memories on VHS, you've probably heard that videotape doesn't last forever. Magnetic tape has an expected life of around ten years. The smart thing to do is to move your videos to digital media, and the DVD format is currently the most practical.
If you're planning to do it yourself, you're going to need either a standalone DVD recorder or a PC with a DVD burner, DVD authoring software, and a voluminous hard disk. Either way, the hardware costs will be significant ($600 - $1,200), a learning curve will be involved, and you'll have to devote a lot of time to the project.
That's why companies like YesVideo.com and HomeMovie.com have emerged. It's becoming more and more affordable -- and far less time consuming -- to send your VHS tapes to a transfer house, where the end result is a Hollywood style DVD, complete with professional looking menus and other special features.
In YesVideo's case, all you need is a prepaid mailer, which can be purchased online or at the photo counter at Walgreen's, Rite-Aid, Eckerd's, Circuit City, and other national retailers.
You can enclose up to two videotapes (two hours total running time, maximum) in the mail-in carton. The company accepts edited videos or raw camcorder footage in a variety of formats (VHS, VHS-C, S-VHS, BetaMax, MiniDV, D-8, Hi-8 and 8mm). Then all you do is hand it to the store clerk or drop it in the mail. It works just like sending film to be processed.
Three weeks later, your originals are returned, accompanied by a completed YesDVD . The latter comes with a full-color label consisting of fourteen thumbnail images grabbed from the finished product. The result is a convenient, durable way to share memories with family and friends without having to purchase expensive equipment and devote countless hours to digitizing video.
YesVideo's YesDVD package has a MSRP of $24.99. The cost is a fraction of what a local video duplication house would charge. Call around and see. The going rate is typically $150 per hour, and up.
What makes the low price possible is YesVideo's patented automation technology, which is reportedly very accurate at detecting scene changes and grouping shots during the digitization process.
The Santa Clara, California-based company also has packages for transferring home movie footage (8mm, Super 8mm and 16mm) and stills (prints or slides) to videotape, Video CDs, or DVDs. YesVideo also has a division, called YesLaw , which caters to the legal community and specializes in marrying written transcripts with the footage from videotaped depositions.
Having your family's home movies and videos on DVD makes more sense than having to thread a projector or fast-forward through hours of footage every time you want to view a particular scene. DVDs also requires less space to store, and as I mentioned above, solve the problem of magnetic recordings' degenerating over time.
The question arises, however, of what happens when a replacement for DVDs comes along? As it turns out, next generation DVDs are supposed to be compatible with existing formats, even though the underlying laser technology will be different.
Companies like Sony are currently promoting blue-violet laser technology as a replacement for the current red laser technology. So-called "Blu-ray Disc" is a recordable DVD format where shorter wavelength laser light allows data to be stored more densely on the disc.
Blu-ray DVDs will be especially adept at recording high-definition television broadcasts (HDTV), which offer better picture quality and sound than conventional TV broadcasts.
Sony already has a Blu-ray Disc product that records and plays Blu-ray discs, as well as DVD, DVD-RW, DVD-R, CD and CD-RW discs. Each single-sided Blu-ray disc holds 27 gigabytes of data. Current DVDs only hold 4.7 GB of data, enough for two hours of standard definition digital video.
Last year, Toshiba and NEC proposed a rival blue-laser DVD format that can be produced with existing DVD manufacturing techniques. The downside is that this version only holds 15 gigabytes of data with read-only discs and 20GB with recordable discs.
Industry analysts fear the introduction of rival blue-laser DVD recording technologies will cause consumer confusion and slow adoption rates. Regardless, most experts say consumers should not wait for next generation DVDs to transfer their VHS tapes to digital media.
Analog videotape loses quality over time, cannot be duplicated without generational loss, and is especially vulnerable to the heat, humidity, and mildew we have in New Orleans.
Moving your VHS tapes to a digital format now is the best way to preserve your memories and ensure that you will have a seamless migration to the digital storage technologies of tomorrow.
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