You will find a huge variety in prices for this service, from the big storefront operations in San Diego's Kearny Mesa area, to the mail away home-based and internet businesses. Personally, we would not trust the U.S. Postal Service with our precious home videos, and you also have to add in the cost of shipping. We will pick up and deliver within the Poway Unified School district and Scripps Ranch.

I suggest you do a "Google search" on businesses so you can find out for yourself that prices vary from about $15 to $35 for basic conversion. Recently Costco has joined the ranks of businesses providing this service. While Costco is a company we believe in, we are proud that we can beat their prices and services, all without shipping your tapes to a subcontractor in Santa Clara with inherent risk of loss.

We have learned a great deal about quality in our research. We use SONY, PANASONIC and MAGNAVOX equipment. We use SONY, VERBATIM, PHILLIPS and FUJI discs. There is a great deal of difference in disc quality between the brands, as evidenced by large tests that record burn rate failures. It's not worth buying the cheap brands knocked off in China. We can test your player for format compatibility. You'd think by now (DVDs came out for consumers in 1997) everything would be uniform. Not so. Different manufacturers competing for market share made their own format (remember the BetaMax-VHS war?). The Sony, Phillips, Hewlett-Packard cartel's format is DVD+R, and we have found good compatibility with it. We have DVD-R if you prefer.

There is a lot of chatter about archival quality but we find that there is no use having a disc last 100 years (which is what the GOLD Yuden discs are supposed to do, but of course we won't know if it's true for a few years!) when the DVD player itself will probably become extinct in 20 years. At least if we digitize our old analog tapes, they will be ready to be transferred to whatever player we use next. And we have captured our memories before the tape deteriorates.

Some older VHS tapes won't play on the newer machines. At present, we have an old and newer VHS machine so that so far, we have been able to play every tape we have tried. Tapes do break. If this happens, it will have to be taken to a repair professional. We haven't had a tape break since the kids were little. Hmmm, maybe that is a clue.

A DVD can hold 1 hour of video at the highest recording quality. But only somebody broadcasting for TV needs this setting. If you have short tapes (like VHS-C for example) this can be done if you like. A DVD can hold 2 hours of video at very good recording quality (SP). This is the setting most everyone uses. With more than 2 hours of video, you have to either drop down one level in recording quality (LP), or record on additional DVDs. Of course, the "1 Tape to 1 DVD" situation is the least labor intensive and therefore the lowest priced. We have burned some dual-layer discs that hold nearly twice as much video (8.5 GB) but we have found that they have more compatibility issues with different players than the single-layer discs and that it is wise to avoid them if you can.

Tapes were not always cut precisely the same length. We have found that sometimes there is actually 2 hours and 3 minutes of recording on them! We would call you and ask if you want to lose those last 3 minutes of video (depends what it is!) or want to re-record it with a step down in quality to fit it on one DVD ($5 charge for the wasted disc and time), or put it on a second DVD. Or you can run through all your tapes ahead of time and note exactly how long they are! (the big shops will just cut it off at 2 hours and you won't know until you get home and see baby's song is missing). We tested 8mm tapes using the SP recording quality and the LP recording quality to compare. Human eyes can not see the difference on average TVs (27”). Play them on our high-definition projector that creates a screen size of about 4 x 7 feet and, if you really concentrate, you can see a slight difference. Not enough for us personally to require the headaches that come with that second disc needed at SP quality.

2 or 3 tapes to 1 DVD is suggested ONLY if there is little recorded on each tape and the total recorded time is no more than 2 hours! We are NOT suggesting you cram 3 tapes onto 1 DVD at a lower recording quality.

The standard label will be white with black text. (We find most people don't want to spend more for a picture image on the label but tell us if you want to). There is room for two bold text titles and two smaller descriptive text phrases. We will fit all the text that we can. See the price and order page for samples.

The DVD menu will have one generic title menu and be divided into chapters every 10 minutes (points that you can skip to). Custom menus are available.

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