VHS to DVD
- footage of family, friends and events
- holiday and wedding films
- personal recordings
- projects and performances
- showreels and portfolios
- DVD CVs
- company presentations
- training videos
- community archives
By digitizing your VHS footage, you can effectively preserve it indefinitely. As part of the process scenes can be cut, footage combined and music and narration added. Chapter markers can also be created - I will place them in appropriate positions or as requested. If properly cared for a DVD will last many years without any loss in quality.
Up to 90 minutes of VHS video can be safely copied to DVD. Any more than this and the quality of the DVD will start falling to below that of the original VHS tape.
PLEASE READ: The most common, consumer DVD format (the MPEG-2 encoded, single layer DVD) is not at all suitable for archiving your valuable footage despite what other copying houses and websites offer. DVDs are only good as a handy, viewing format to pass to friends, family or customers. If you want VHS video properly archived then MiniDV or DVD+R (DL) is the cost-effective solution as the video data is then stored in the DV (Digital Video) format. VHS tapes copied onto the DV format (highly recommended) whilst only retaining the original 'master' VHS quality* are, nevertheless, captured at full frame. This DV copy can then be considered to be your 'master' digital copy and can be used to easily transfer to next-generation optical disc formats.
Please see the video section for much more information on the technical issues of DVD and MiniDV.
* in fact when copying to DVD/MiniDV from a VHS tape, the copy will be of slightly lower quality due to generation loss inherent when using analogue tape. Generation loss refers to the loss of quality between subsequent copies.