On The Way To San Jose

Here are a couple little tips about mailing your irreplaceable home movies and photographs.

First off, they don’t qualify as “media mail.” It sounds counter intuitive but if you check the postal regulations, they make it clear that personal DVDs, videotapes, pictures etc must be sent first class or priority mail.

Second, and this is where people end up wasting money. Do not purchase insurance for your videos, DVDs etc. It is a waste of money. Here’s why:

Suppose your 25th wedding anniversary is coming up and you want to surprise your bride with a nice DVD of your wedding video.

You box it up, address it to Charlie’s Video Transfer Shop in San Jose, California, and take it to the post office. The postal clerk offers you insurance. Priority mail comes with $50 insurance at no additional cost and you buy an additional $500 of insurance for, I think the current cost is $6.40.

Something happens on the way to San Jose and your package is lost or destroyed. Well, at least you’ve got $500 to take your wife out for a nice night on the town at a super swanky restaurant, right?

Wrong. The postal service will pay the claim (in about 90 days) but they will pay for the cost of a new blank video tape – or about $5.00. I guess you could use that to take your wife out…to McDonald’s….as long as you can get her to order off the dollar menu.

So, the lesson is: Don’t buy the insurance. In fact, I always suggest using someone local, someone to whom you can hand your irreplaceable memories.

For more information about transferring your home movies to DVD or importing them to your computer, visit www.safeandsoundvideo.com

Recycling Alternatives For Your Old VCR

So once you have all your old home movies transferred to a digital format, what do you do with your old VCR?

For most people, there are three options: 

1. Throw it in the trash and hope the pick up guys take it away,
2. Take it to a recycling center where you may be charged $10 for it to be disposed of properly,
3. Leave it on the shelf for another ten years and decide what to do with it then.

Some folks have gotten far more creative than the average VCR owner.

How about a VCR toaster? I’m not sure it works but it’s an interesting idea.

Perhaps more practical is the VCR-powered, programable cat feeder. Yes, with a little mechanical know-how you can make sure the cat has fresh food all day long while you’re out earning the bread to pay for it.

There are lots of creative, interesting things that can be done with the innards of a VCR. Check out this article for more ideas

For more information about transferring your home movies to DVD or importing them to your computer, visit www.safeandsoundvideo.com

It’s the Family Season

Welcome to November. While the JC Penney’s, Walmart’s and Macy’s of the world are kicking off their “Holiday Season,” I like to think of this as the Family Season.

It’s the time of year many of us see a lot of our families. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the big draws for family get-togethers but many families have annual parties, Christmas Eve celebrations and more.

For some family, it’s the only time we see them all year. It’s the annual catch-up conversation with Uncle Fred before he has too many martinis and become’s the life of the party for the 47th consecutive year. 

It’s time to talk and laugh about the old days. Funny stores that get passed from generation to generation while gathered about the table. It’s also a time to reminisce about family who are no longer with us.

For me, it’s a busy season. All this talk among family members often turns to “What about our home movies?  Most people don’t have a projector or VCR anymore so watching the old home movies is out of the question.

That’s where I come in. I can transfer your old home movies to a digital format. Then you can watch them on your big screen TV.

This Family Season, think about how much fun it would be to see crazy Uncle Fred in that home movie showing the first time he put a lampshade on his head…

For more information about transferring your home movies to DVD or importing them to your computer, visit www.safeandsoundvideo.com

Remember When?

Remember when you had to join a club to rent videos?

Remember when every video store had a VHS section and a Betamax section?

Remember when VCRs were so expensive, you could rent one from your local store?

Remember VCR repair shops?

Remember that little room behind the curtain in your local video store where they had the Adult titles?

Remember late return fees?

Remember fines for not rewinding?

Remember stickers on the tapes “Be Kind – Rewind?”

Remember how expensive it was to replace a lost tape – $100 or so.

Remember when every store had VHS and DVD copies of every title?

Remember those rewinders every store tried to sell you?

Remember when Blockbuster came to town?

Remember when Blockbuster closed and sold off their inventory for $1 a DVD?

For more information about scanning your family photos, transferring your home movies to DVD or importing them to your computer, visit www.safeandsoundvideo.com

‘Tis The Season…

‘Tis the season.

This time of year is the time people start to think of family. They suddenly realize they have not picked up their video camera since last Christmas morning.

What I see a lot of is, Thanksgiving, Christmas decorating, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It’s amazing how many years you can fit on a videotape if you only shoot 3 or 4 days a year.

Anyway, this it the time of year I get really busy.

I picture couples all over the country picking up their video camera and hearing their spouse say “We should look at all the home movies this year,” quickly followed by “But the camera for all the movies of the kids when they were young is long gone.”

That’s were I come in.

I can transfer your movies – no matter what format – on to DVDs or onto a hard drive your computer can read.

I’ve done movies on 16mm film from the 1920’s.

I’ve done a lot of Betamax movies – that’s a format that competed with VHS in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

And, of course, I’ve done home movies in all the most popular formats too.

People have movies in a wide variety of formats:

Film formats:
16mm,
8mm,
Super 8,

Videotape formats
Betamax,
VHS,
VHS-C,
8mm,
High 8 (sometimes written as Hi 8),
Mini Dv

See what I mean?

Who’s got the cameras for all those old formats? Really, almost no one.

For my own home movies, I used Betamax, VHS, 8mm, High 8 and Mini Dv.

This year, when you pick up the video camera, think for a second:

“Do I have all the camera’s I’ve used over the years?”

“Are my tapes safe or are they fading away day, by day?”

“Do I want to save, see and share my home movies with friends and family?”

If you need help with your home movies, call on me to help.

For more information about transferring your home movies to DVD or importing them to your computer, visit www.safeandsoundvideo.com