Consumer Video & Film Transfers to DVD and MPEG4

Creative Visual Productions a division of Creative Video does all the video conversion work in house at our West Deptford, NJ studio. Your tapes never leave our facility. After ten years video images start to fade off the mylar videotapes. Like photos and film, whose colors fade and grow brittle with age, videotape is hurt by time and chance.

Creative Visual Productions digital duplication center located in West Deptford, NJ provides services for residents of the Greater Philadelphia area in addition to a mail-in service to serve customers around the country. Creative Visual Productions also provides duplication services so you can get backup copies and additional copies for friends and family members.

CVP first fully fast forwards and rewinds your videotapes and spot check the video and audio quality and times the length of the video to be transferred to digital. Second we run the tape through a time base corrector to enhance the luminance, black levels, chroma and hue. During this process we are simultaneously running the audio through an audio mixer and distribution amp to restore the audio best as possible to their original levels or in many cases even improving the original audio levels. Finally CVP will print your title or DVD screen onto the surface of the DVD for a professional look. Creative Visual Productions offers plenty of packaging options including anything from a library case with a clear full-cover glossy sleeve insert to a plain clear hard plastic jewel case that displays your DVD Surface title screen. For computer file transfers we can move the files onto an external hard drive, a USB stick, have you download them from our client FTP server, or email them to you through wetransfer.

Creative Visual Productions offers quantity discounts starting at orders of five or more tapes.

Our pricing is based on length of videotape and the quantity of tapes you are having transferred to digital. Fill out the Request a Quote box on this page or call 856-848-0046 for a price quote.

Finally CVP will print your title or DVD screen onto the surface of the DVD for a professional look. Creative Visual Productions offers plenty of packaging options including anything from a library case with a clear full-cover glossy sleeve insert to a plain clear hard plastic jewel case that displays your DVD Surface title screen. For computer file transfers we can move the files onto an external hard drive, a USB stick, have you download them from our client FTP server or email them to you through wetransfer.

FORMATS:

Film:

Super8

8mm

16mm

35mm

35mm Slides

35mm Negatives

Advantex APS Slides

Advantex APS Negatives

127

126 Kpk

…and many more!

The 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and Super 8 formats were widely used to capture memories from the 1930s through the 1980s, and we can protect those moments by converting your 8mm movies to DVD, and as digital files on a USB hard drive.

We use state-of-the-art imaging equipment so you get great color reproduction and resolution for your 8mm to DVD transfer. We also automatically adjust the exposure throughout each film reel, which helps to lighten dark scenes, and darkens overexposed film.

We have recently added microfilm, microfiche, 35mm negative and slide conversion to digital formats services.

The Video Home System (VHS) is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan (JVC) in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan in late 1976 and in the USA in early 1977.

From the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs). At that time, the devices were used only in expensive professional environments such as television studios and medical imaging (fluoroscopy). In the 1970s, videotape entered home use, creating the home video industry and changing the economics of the television and movie businesses. The television industry viewed videocassette recorders (VCRs) as having the power to disrupt their business, while television users viewed the VCR as the means to take control of their hobby.

In the 1980s and 1990s, at the peak of VHS’s popularity, there were videotape format wars in the home video industry. Two of the formats, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure. VHS eventually won the war; dominating 60 percent of the North American market by 1980 and succeeding as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period.

Optical disc formats later began to offer better quality than analog consumer video tape such as standard and super-VHS. The earliest of these formats, LaserDisc, was not widely adopted. However, after the introduction of the DVD format in 1997, VHS’s market share began to decline. By 2008, DVD had achieved mass acceptance and replaced VHS as the preferred low end method of distribution.

TIPS FOR TAPE LIFE

Always rewind the tape after use. This was never a problem with 2 inch or 1 inch which obviously had to be de-spooled from the VTR before storage. Cassettes however can be ejected from a VTR at whatever position the tape is stopped at. This leaves about eight inches of the tape exposed to whatever environment it is stored in irrespective of whether it is put back in its case or not. The cases are not airtight. It will also leave the two spools inside the cassette imbalanced and this can cause the tape to go “slack” after storage. When completely rewound there is a two foot clear plastic leader at the head of the tape which means that none of the magnetic or ceramic tape is exposed. It also “repacks” the tape onto the supply spool and once in its case and stored upright (similar to books in a library) no slack will occur on the spool.

The storage environment should ideally be “climate controlled”. Put simply a cool dark place not subject to fluctuations in temperature. An air conditioned tape library is ideal. Please note though, I have numerous tapes stashed in my bedroom closet that are still perfectly OK after 15 years. Humidity is the biggest killer of stored videotape. Moisture once inside a cassette housing is almost impossible to remove. Never get a tape wet, it is the kiss of death otherwise.

Avoid dust and smoke at all costs. If a cassette is placed into a poorly maintained VTR i.e. dusty, dirty heads etc it is a given that some of this contamination will end up inside the cassette. Smoking near VTR’s is not recommended. Smoke particles are huge and easily ingested into VTR’s that are constantly sucking air in as coolant for the high speed heads. Dust and smoke particles pass across the heads and the tape in contact with the heads and are the biggest creators of dropouts and tape damage. A clean environment when working with the tape will prolong its life.

While the cassette is in the VTR try not to leave it in “Pause” or “Freeze” mode for too long. Press the Stop button on the VTR or edit controller so that the heads are no longer in contact with the tape.