Video to DVD Transfers
| Sunray Video specializes in converting your videos to DVD.
Whether you need to convert VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, Hi8, Digital8, MiniDV, or
Betacam videos, you'll find
plenty of useful information below about video to DVD transfers, including
authored and unauthored DVDs, DVD formats and duplication. We hope
you find this information to be helpful.
To view our video transfer commercial, click on the Play Video link
below the image on the right. --------------->>> |
As seen on TV
Play
video |
Do you have any family memories recorded on camcorder
tapes? Watch NBC
7/39's story on why your recorded memories will soon be lost forever. 
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Video to DVD transfer
special:
Transfer 12 hours or more of your 8mm, Hi8, or Digital8 camcorder tapes to DVD now and
SAVE $ 5.00/disc off your order! Minimum transfer order of 14 hours
required. Offer expires September 26, 2008. Transfer
order must exceed 12 hours of video to qualify for this offer. May not be
combined with any other offer. Mention website special to receive
discount.
As the proverbial "sun" sets on the
VHS format, it's become critically important to get your videotapes transferred
to DVD before they lose all of their irreplaceable contents forever. Tests
have shown that images recorded on videotape can noticeably deteriorate
beginning as soon as just 7 years after they were originally recorded.
We've confirmed this on some of the videotapes that we've used in the
past. Of the thousands of tapes we've received from customers for transfer
to DVD, we've noticed that VHS, 8mm, and Hi8 camcorder tapes seem to be the most
vulnerable.
The reasons for that videotape recordings break
down over time can be varied from the quality of the tape used to how the tapes
were stored over the years. For example, videotapes that were placed on or
near a stereo speaker or close to a magnetic source could have fallen victim to
accidental erasure as the magnetic field can rearrange the metal particles on
the tape, disrupting the information that was recorded. In fact, the use
of magnetic fields is precisely how the information was recorded onto the
videotapes in the first place. The tapes, themselves, are made up of tiny
metal particles that are "arranged magnetically" in a pattern
corresponding to the information being recorded. Storage of videotapes in
areas that are too hot or too cold can affect the actual tape itself, in some
case by warping it, making it difficult for a videotape player to play back the
images precisely as they were originally recorded. While DVDs are not infallible,
they are not subject to the same types of deterioration described above.
Whether your videos
contain precious family memories or important seminars or educational
information, we can't emphasize
enough the importance of getting them put onto DVD before their contents are
lost forever.
8mm,
Hi8, and Digital8 formats have been discontinued
In
case you haven’t heard by now, the popular camcorder formats of 8mm, Hi8, and
Digital8 video have been discontinued. Sony,
the developer of all three of these formats, no longer manufactures the cameras
that will record or PLAY any of these types of tapes.
If you’ve ever owned one of these cameras and recorded any of your home
videos on any of these formats, then your memories are in danger of being lost
forever.
Between
the 80s and today, less than a third of the people who used video cameras to
record their families’ memories recorded on the 8mm, Hi8, or Digital 8
formats. This led to far fewer
machines available to play these formats or transfer them to DVD.
Unfortunately, whenever someone’s 8mm camcorder became in need of
repair, most of the owners opted to throw them away and buy a new camera, with
some of them deciding to switch to a different format altogether.
Sony
no longer makes 8mm, Hi8, or Digital8 camcorders
Since
Sony is no longer manufacturing 8mm camcorders, it’s become a lot more
difficult for companies like ours to obtain the equipment necessary to be able
to transfer any of the 8mm, Hi8, or Digital8 formats to DVD for our customers to
be able to view their precious memories. We
anticipate that we have only a few years left before we will no longer be able
to play these tape formats. For
this reason, we are strongly encouraging anyone who still has any home videos on
these types of tapes to bring them in to be converted to DVD as soon as possible
while we still have players that work.
VHS-C
and VHS formats are on the way out
You
probably already know by now that VCRs have become harder to find as they are
being phased out in favor of DVD. VHS-C
camcorders are just about extinct and before long we will lose the ability to
transfer VHS-C and VHS tapes as well.
Did
you know that the picture and sound on VHS tapes begin to deteriorate just 7
years after
they were recorded? If you have any
tapes older than 7 years, you should transfer them right away.
MiniDV
could be next
During
my last visit to Best Buy and Circuit City I noticed that most of the camcorders
for sale used an internal hard drive, a mini DVD disc, or some form of memory
card to record and store video information.
I did not see very many MiniDV camcorders available which leads me to
believe that the MiniDV format could very well be the next format to disappear.
The MiniDV format shares an important element with the 8mm video format
in that you pretty much had to have a MiniDV camera in order to play these tapes
back on your television. After
these cameras are discontinued, we’ll have a similar limited transfer time
window as the 8mm format except that there were a few more people that used the
MiniDV tapes than 8mm.
We highly recommend a backup DVD copy
We know how easily discs can be scratched and damaged,
sometimes just by accidentally dropping them on the floor. So we recommend
getting a 2nd set of DVDs that can be stored away in a safe place. If any
of your discs should become damaged beyond the ability to be played, you'll be
able to make another copy for a fraction of the cost of having your videos
transferred all over again, assuming you still have them.
Dangers
of DVD labeling
Did
you know that you could be damaging your DVDs by the way you’re labeling them
now? One of the most popular
methods people choose for labeling their DVDs and CDs is using some sort of
magic marker-type pen to write on the top face of the disc.
There have been cases where the chemicals in the ink from the marker have
actually “eaten” through the disc rendering the disc unreadable when played
in a DVD or CD player.
The
next most popular method of labeling discs is using the press-on labels that you
print on using a printer and then peel and stick onto the face of the DVD or CD.
This process introduces a few problems.
First, the label must be accurately centered onto the disc face or the
disc will be unbalanced and tend to ‘wobble’ while it spins at a rate of
several hundreds revolutions per minute inside of a DVD player.
The wobbling of an unbalanced disc may cause problems for the laser
inside the disc player when it attempts to read the information on the disc.
Second,
the label must be affixed to the disc surface as smooth and flat as possible.
Otherwise, there will be air bubbles that can cause problems or worse,
the label could begin to detach itself from the disc.
Also, some of the glues used on press-on labels have been known to lose
its stickiness resulting in the labels separating and peeling off from the disc
face. When this happens, the label
could get wrapped up inside the DVD player and damage both the player and the
disc.
For
these reasons, we exclusively use a special type of disc that allows us to print
the labeling information directly onto the surface of the disc without the use
of labels or chemicals that can damage the disc.
In addition, we now use DVDs that are resistant to water stains or bleeds
should some liquid accidentally spill onto the disc.
Stop by our office to check out our direct-to-disc printing results for
yourself.
Unauthored vs. Authored DVDs
Authored DVDs
There are essentially two methods used to
create DVDs, authored and unauthored. If you own or have viewed any
Hollywood movies you may remember that when you first placed the DVD into your
player a menu appeared on your television screen at some point, prompting you to
select "play" to play the movie. You may have also noticed some
options for other features like bonus footage, director's commentary, or choices
for changing the sound playback characteristics of the movie. All of the
menus created for these DVDs are customized for each movie. These DVDs
have been created using authoring software and usually require several hours of
labor to design and "program" the menu layout and function.
Unauthored DVDs
In order to keep the cost of transferring
videotapes to DVDs low, Sunray uses stand-alone DVD recorders to create
unauthored DVDs of your videos. They do not require the use of a computer
and can convert and record video to DVD in real (actual) time without the
assistance of a technician. A two hour video will require a little more
than two hours to convert to DVD as opposed to the authored type which utilizes
the services of a computer and technician for at least 5 hours or more.
Therefore, we can convert a two hour video to an unauthored DVD for just $25.00
versus over $300.00 for an authored DVD. There are some compromises with
this process. For example, you cannot have a customized menu.
Unauthored DVDs will have a generic menu instead.
Chapters
Chapters have been described in more than one
way. For unauthored DVDs our equipment will place "chapter
points" approximately every 10 minutes throughout the video that may be
accessed by using the next button (usually notated by two right-facing arrows
and a vertical line >>| ) on the
remote control for your DVD player. I prefer to call these index points
rather than chapter points. Each time you press this button, the DVD will
advance 10 minutes ahead. In addition to these "index points",
chapter points can also be manually created anywhere within the DVD. Once
created, they would be assigned a designated title (chosen by you) that will
appear on the DVD menu whenever you press the menu button on your remote.
After highlighting a specific chapter title on the menu and pressing the enter
key, the DVD player would then jump directly to that specific spot on the DVD
and begin playing from that point though the end of the disc. Since there
is additional labor required to create these chapter points and label them, we
typically charge $5 per title for every title over 2 titles per disc.
DVD Formats
If you remember the format wars of the 80s when
VHS and Betamax battled it out to see which format would become the standard for
video recording and movie rentals in most households. Of course, VHS wound
up being the winner and Betamax seemed to disappear. Well, unfortunately,
the introduction of DVDs led to a whole new level of format wars, with DVD-Ram,
DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD-R being among the contenders, and DVD-Rom used
primarily for software and as alternative data storage for computers. The
DVD-Ram, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW formats have been, for the most part, brand specific
in their use which requires the same brand of DVD player to play a disc as the
one that recorded it for each particular format. For example, if you had a
DVD-Ram disc you would have to use a Panasonic machine to either record or
playback the disc. Most other brands would not recognize the DVD-Ram
format.
DVD+R and DVD-R have been more compatible than
the other formats in terms of being able to play them on several brands of DVD
players, with DVD-R being the most universally compatible of the two
formats. This is the reason why most video companies, including Sunray,
will use DVD-R for all of their video transfers.
High Definition DVDs (Blu-ray)
You may have heard about the battle for the
next generation high-definition DVD formats between Blu-ray and HD DVD.
With more high-definition programming becoming available and Hi-Def televisions
taking over the market, the need for a DVD format that will hold enough data to
adequately contain an entire Hollywood movie in Hi-Def has become
necessary. Again consumers were stuck in the middle of yet another format
war. There is good news. As of February 2008, Toshiba, one of the
last holdouts, has decided to discontinue their support for the HD DVD, making
Blu-ray the winner of this battle. Blu-ray discs can hold about 66% more
information than an HD DVD, so it seemed logical to presume that it would
eventually win. Blu-ray discs will hold up to 25GB of data on a
single-layer disc versus only about 4.5GB on a traditional DVD. If you use
a dual-layer disc, it would hold 50GB of information, equivalent to about 9
hours of high definition programming. At this time, the cost of the
equipment to play and record Blu-ray is still rather high, with players starting
around $400.00. For more information about Blu-ray, check out http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_capacity_video.
Hazards
of using large chain retailers for video to
DVD transfers
During the past few
years some of the large national chain retailers like Target and Walgreens have
started offering film and video transfer services.
We thought you should know that none
of these chains actually perform the transfer of film or video to DVD.
Instead they ship them off to a large warehouse firm that handles
thousands of projects. They often
have quality control issues due to the large volume of work they handle and
it’s much more difficult to have corrections made to any transfer.
All of the film and
video transfers brought to Sunray are transferred in-house and never shipped
out. We handle each and every film,
videotape, and DVD as if it were our own.
Benefits of a Sunray Video to DVD transfer
Sunray offers video transfer to authored,
unauthored, and even PAL DVDs complete with chapters if you need them. Our company uses professional quality DVDs that
tend to be more durable and last longer than the bargain discs that are sold in
stores and online. In our experience it's not worth trying to save a
little money at the risk of losing the priceless images captured on your
video. And to ensure there is no damage to the DVD during the labeling
process, we don't used magic markers or press-on labels when labeling your
DVDs. Chemicals often found in magic markers have been known to "eat
through" the materials in DVDs that can render them unreadable.
Magic markers have been
know to "eat through" DVDs making them unreadable.
Press-on (or stick-on) labels introduce their
own set of problems that can affect the playback of a disc. If the label
is not applied precisely centered on top of the disc, the disc will be
off-balance and may tend to "wobble" during playback while the disc is
spinning at several hundred revolutions per minute. Some DVD players may
have trouble reading a disc that wobbles while it is spinning inside the
player. Also, some of these labels have been proven to separate from the
surface of the disc over time and are at risk of getting snagged inside the DVD
player mechanism causing irreparable damage to both the disc and the DVD player.
Our process involves printing directly onto the surface of the disc that is
specifically designed for the application of ink that is resistant to moisture
and won't destroy the materials within the DVD.
Formats we can transfer to DVD
We have the equipment to transfer all of the
following formats to both NTSC and PAL DVDs.
For source video in
NTSC: VHS, VHS-C, 8mm/Hi8/Digital8, HDV, MiniDV, DVCAM, Betacam and
Betacam SP.
For source video in
PAL: VHS, VHS-C, HDV, MiniDV, and DVCAM.
We can transfer from NTSC DVD to PAL DVD and
from PAL DVD to NTSC DVD. We can transfer AVI, QuickTime, and MPEG videos
to DVD, as well.
Give us a call for
pricing information.
Gold Archival DVDs now available
Sunray now offers the Archival Gold
DVDs for preserving your films even longer than before. There have
been numerous reports of DVDs that started coming apart after just 3
years. Many are blaming the poor quality materials used to produce the
discs.
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The
innovative materials and manufacturing methods used to produce
Archival Gold DVD-R's make them among the most reliable storage
media available. Other DVD-R's may deteriorate quickly due to common
environmental factors: ultraviolet light, heat, and humidity. Using
N.I.S.T.'s (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
accelerated aging process to test the longevity of DVD-R media, the
Archival Gold DVD-R has been shown to safely store your images for
more than 100 years.
A key component of the Archival
Gold DVD-R's durability is the use of gold as the reflective layer
of the disc. Gold is one of the most inert, reflective (and
expensive) elements on earth, which makes it perfect to resist the
effects of temperature and humidity. These characteristics prevent
oxidation, a common cause of failure to most DVD-R's. |
Thirty percent of the cost to produce every
Archival Gold disc is due to the use of 24 karat gold.
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-
LIMITED TIME ONLY
-
Video to GOLD DVD transfer
special:
Transfer 15 hours or more of your VHS or camcorder tapes to our GOLD Archival DVDs now and receive
2 additional standard DVD copies of each disc FREE! That means for every
Gold DVD you get, you'll receive 2 standard DVD copies at no charge. Minimum transfer order of
15 hours is required. Offer expires September 26, 2008. Transfer
order must exceed 15 hours of video to qualify for this offer. May not be
combined with any other offer. Mention website special to receive
discount.
Pricing Information for Video to DVD transfers
Video transfer to standard DVDs
From 
to  |
From 
to |
| From VHS, VHS-C, SuperVHS, MiniDV, |
From 8mm, Hi8, or Digital8 |
| or DVCAM Video to Standard DVD: |
Camcorder Video to Standard DVD: |
| Up to 60 minutes -
$15 |
Up to 60 minutes -
$20 |
|
61-90 minutes - $20 |
61-90 minutes - $25 |
| 91-120 minutes -
$25 |
91-120 minutes -
$30 |
- There will be a minimum order charge of $25 on all
orders to cover administrative costs.
-
- Price includes disc, labeling, and DVD case. Custom designed case
inserts and sleeves are available for an additional charge.
Video transfer to GOLD
DVDs
