STEP 1: DIGITIZING

Getting the best quality transfer from your video tapes starts first by capturing your tapes as digital files. This requires special hardware and professional tape decks.

When we digitize your tapes, we record them first through time base converters (image stabilizers) onto our servers in real time. We capture your tapes with professional JVC decks in an uncompressed digital format. This ensures that the digital file is of the highest quality before being sent to the editing department.

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Many transfer houses avoid this process and sacrifice quality for speed. Instead of capturing a high quality file, they record your tape directly to DVD. However, a full resolution digital file allows for additional editing and color correction to take place before the DVD is created.

STEP 2: EDITING

The editing phase of the transfer process is what makes Transfer for Less unique. It is by far the most beneficial to you and your video memories, and it's included in our price!

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As video tapes deteriorate over time, you may notice color changes in the picture quality, or a high pitch buzz in the audio during playback. Our professional editors review the digital files captured from your video tapes and make adjustments to correct these things where possible. This stage is also critical for quality control. It is not uncommon for our editors to reject an initial tape capture and return it to our capturing department in an attempt to secure a better quality file. We even cut out obvious accidental recordings such as shots of the sky, ground, unwanted tv shows, etc. Your video tape transfer is guaranteed to be of the highest quality.

Transfer for Less is the only one in the industry to offer all of this correction and editing in our transfer price! It takes more time, but it's the only way to do it right.

STEP 3: ARCHIVING

After each of your tapes has been reviewed and edited they are ready to be placed onto DVD, or stored on a hard drive as a digital file. We always follow industry quality specifications for delivering your final product. For example, we create DVDs using Dolby Digital audio, established by the creators of DVD, including Sony®, Phillips®, Toshiba® and Time Warner®.

We exclusively use top of the line Professional Grade A media rated to last at least 100 years by the manufacturers! This ensures maximum compatibility and reliably safeguards your video memories for generations to come.

STEP 1: PREPARATION

A quality transfer begins with clean and lubricated film. It is a requirement! That's why we've included it in our price. Every reel is completely unwound and carefully inspected by hand. This includes cleaning and lubricating, as well as repairing broken splices and damaged sprocket holes. We add new leader to the film when necessary. This procedure is the most important part of the transfer! Starting with clean film guarantees a clean transfer.

STEP 4: ARCHIVING

You may choose to receive your transferred film on an external drive as full resolution digital files (SD-AVI, HD-AVI, Apple Pro Res), compressed files ((MP4), or on DVD or Blu-ray. If you plan on doing any additional editing, we recommend taking delivery of digital files on an external hard drive with full resolution files. Please note, DVD and Blu-ray discs as well as digital MP4 files are compressed formats for final viewing. They are not intended to be edited again!

STEP 2: SCANNING 

FRAME BY FRAME.

Film is simply a series of pictures played back quickly. As such, we digitize your film by scanning in each image cell, one at a time, frame by frame with HD technology! This creates thousands of unique digital pictures. It is a lengthy process, but guarantees a crystal clear, flicker free film transfer with greater color and razor sharp image quality. Our transfer machines also use a cool LED light instead of the super hot bulbs found in old film projectors. The LED provides even illumination for each frame during scanning. The process is completely non-destructive, and you'll receive your film back with your transfer.

STEP 3: EDITING

Your digitized film is reviewed by a professional editor. Our staff removes segments of unexposed film, unintentional recordings (floor, sky etc.) and color corrects the resulting images. They also ensure that your film will play back at the correct speed. We can combine all film types together into single digital files or DVD's.