Valentines day is quickly approaching, and our local stores are helping to spread the love! Check out a couple stores below, and don’t forget to stop in for a custom slideshow creation for your loved ones!

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One exciting and fun thing to do with your old unused media, is to create arts and crafts from them! After people get their videos and VHS tapes to DVD, they often ask us what the best way to recycle these tapes are. Most people don’t want to simply throw their memories in the trash can, even if they’ve been transferred because they are the original master tapes. Instead of throwing them away, some people hold onto them by creating different arts and crafts out of them.

One creative way to use your old VHS tapes involves actually creating a picture frame out of them and mounting it on your wall. The easiest way is to find a VHS case that has the ability to hold an insert. You would then place your photo inside the insert flap (making sure it’s the right size). Once the photo has been inserted into the case, it’s ready to mount wherever you’d like. You could mount the tape on the wall a variety of ways. I would suggest using some mounting wax or tape for a semi-permanent solution. However, if you plan to keep your art on the wall for a while, I would simply screw it into the wall using mounts and screws.

This is just one of the many ideas you can create from old media after it’s been through our video to DVD transfer services. If you use your imagination, you could create a whole collection of arts from your old media. Ask your technician if they have any ideas of what you could create from your personal collection!

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Each month, DVD Your Memories will send our customers a satisfaction survey provided that you have given us your email address. This survey will help us make sure we are providing optimal service, and the that you are getting the products you desire. We’re committed to monitoring the quality of the products and services as part of an ongoing improvement process.

When you receive the survey via email, We will ask you a series of questions depending on the type of order you had done with us. It isn’t a long survey, and takes about a couple of minutes to complete.

If you have been selected to take part in our satisfaction survey, you will receive an email in your inbox asking you to take part in one of our short surveys. The email will look something like the image below.

Keep in mind that the survey is completely optional, although we would love to hear feedback from you! If you follow the link in the email, you will be taken to the survey page. This page is where you will be answering a short series of questions about your time at DVD Your Memories, and how you liked the product. Be sure to tell us what type of media type you had transferred, such as if it was a video transfer, slide scanning, or a film to DVD order.

We use the data we receive from surveys to help us improve our systems, techniques and products. We encourage all of our customers to engage in the survey, as it will help us grow and remain the nation’s number one local family media transfer company!

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Missed out on CES 2012? Check out some of the cool highlights below.

Some of the coolest gadgets from the most innovative companies in the world have shown up to show everyone their latest technologies and patents. Unfortunately, no one from our staff was able to make it this year, but we look forward to making it next year! In the meantime, we’ll be busy upgrading our own technology for transferring video to DVD!

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1. Someone’s wedding is one of the most important days of their entire lives. What better way to show your husband or wife that you care than by transferring your wedding tape to DVD! Transferring the video to DVD will help prevent further deterioration and degradation, so that you’ll be able to keep a copy of this special event forever. Show your special someone you truly care by converting your precious memories to a DVD!

2. Slideshow creation is another great way to show family or friends a meaningful message. Gather up some photos and create a themed slideshow detailing the years events or the life of one of your own. Custom slideshows are great for parties, family gatherings and events!

3. Does someone close to you have tons and tons of old photos or photo albums? I’m sure they would just love to get all of their precious photos scanned and digitized at some point, but are probably having trouble of where to start. Spend a day with them organizing the photos, or even picking out the most important ones that can be used to scan into the computer later, so that you’ll always have a digital copy, even if something were to happen to the original image. Even mentioning to the person you love to get their photo albums scanned can be a huge motivator!

4. Turning old images from photos, slides or negatives into personalized photo items and gifts has been popular for years. Nearly any kind of item can be created from a photo. We’ve seen quite a variety of items to choose from and the most popular include coffee mugs, t-shirts, charms and mousepads! This is a great way to show someone you care and to keep them thinking of you!

5. Framed picture enlargements are great for Mom and Dad, especially after a family photo shoot. These are wonderful gifts that can be hung or displayed in just about every room of the house. If someone’s walls are little lacking in the artwork department, try gifting them an enlarged photo.

6. Similar to a framed picture enlargements are the canvas prints. You can convert slides, negatives or photos to a canvas printed image! These are awesome decorating pieces that are gaining a lot of popularity. It will essentially allow you to turn any image into an exeptional work of art. These are also great gifts for your child’s prized drawing creations.

7. Got an entertainer or a music lover in the family? Try recording a family music video and sharing it with friends! You can film all sorts of sequences and blend them to the music using video editing software. Once finished, it’s easy to upload to Youtube, or other file sharing site to watch with family or friends. You can set the video as private, or public for the whole world to see.

8. Creating a digital scrapbook out of photo albums is a great way to share all of your cool photos, without having to lug around severl photo albums. If you scan photo albums to CD or DVD, you can take the digital images, and insert them into a slideshow or scrapbook creation software to make the perfect piece to show off to all of your friends.

9. Create a custom calendar from your photos. Calendar creation is a great gift, especially towards the end, or beginning of the year. Many people use traditional calendars to track their day to day activities, despite the prevelance of web and smartphone calendar apps. This is especially true if you craft a cusom calendar with your own images. You can even print special messages on certain days to remind your loved ones of important events.

10. Start up accounts on a family sharing site is a great way to keep up with your family’s activity and media. It’s like a central hub that contains all of your family history and media– where everyone can upload funny pictures, videos and short messages to each other. If the whole family uses a site like this, it can get even better, since multiple people are providing content and uploading the site on a consistant basis.

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All of us have some sort of media, whether it’s on video tapes, our computers, or our picture frames. Some media we even have plans to transfer to a digital format such as a DVD. There are still thousands and thousands of important tapes that are awaiting a video to DVD transfer in San Diego alone! Chances are that some of our blog readers have some media somewhere in their home that is awaiting a transfer to DVD.

Vote on the poll if you have any media laying around that you plan to get transferred!

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After having converted your audio such as cassette to CD, or reel to reel to CD, you can also rip the audio back to your computer into a variety of different audio formats. Here are some of the most common audio formats, and a little bit of info about them:

MP3 – Today, when you hear “MP3″, the first thing that pops into your mind is probably music or songs. MP3 format has quickly risen to one of the most popular formats of audio, much in part to it’s compression. MP3 audio is what’s called a “lossy format”, which means that some quality is lost during the compression process. MP3s can be compressed into files that are a mere fraction of their original source, and to an untrained ear–the quality loss is minimal. Audiophiles typically like to steer clear of MP3 audio due to the fact that it is compressed, and won’t sound quite as good as a lossless format.

WAV – WAV is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard on PCs. WAV is typically regarded as a lossless audio format, although it can contain compressed audio. WAV is also the standard audio file format for CDs, containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since LPCM uses an uncompressed storage method which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software. The WAV format is also only limited to files that are less than 4 GB, because of its use of a 32-bit unsigned integer to record the file size header (some programs will actually limit the file size to 2–4 GB).

AAC – AAC is a relatively newer, lossy audio format. It was developed to succeed the MP3 format, as it generally receives better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates. AAC is also the default or standard audio format for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player and PlayStation 3.

FLAC – FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost. Digital audio compressed by FLAC’s algorithm can typically be reduced to 50–60% of its original size, and decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data. This means that you can actually have the same quality of music, with the added bonus of freeing up a lot of your hard drive space. One of the main drawbacks is that FLAC playback support in portable audio devices and dedicated audio systems is limited compared to formats like MP3.

Apple Lossless – Apple Lossless, also known as ALAC or ALE is an audio encoder developed by Apple for lossless compression of digital music. Initially, Apple kept the encoder proprietary until 2011, when they released an open-source, royalty-free version. Apple Lossless audio is stored in an mp4 container with the extension of .m4a

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Here’s the schedule for our stores for the upcoming Holidays.

All stores will be open from 9am to 3pm on Christmas Eve (Saturday, December 24).

In addition, all stores except Denver will be closed on Monday, December 26.

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10: The VHS Revolution

The story of the effect of the DVD on the film industry starts with the introduction of the VHS tape in the early 1980s. Home video changed how the film industry worked, by providing people a way to enjoy movies from the comfort of their own homes. VHS tapes were pretty expensive when the first came out, as the heads of the major studios were worried about profit loss. When they realized that they weren’t really losing any profits, it paved the way to the low priced DVDs we know of today.

9: Special Features

One of the most attractive features of the DVD over conventional video tapes was the amount of recording space available. A typical VHS recording would run about 400mb, while a commercial DVD can hold up to 15 times that amount. This has allowed studios to insert graphical menus, additional commentary and audio tracks, and of course — special features and behind the scenes looks. Special features are also something that cannot be added through a standard VHS to DVD transfer.

8: Rise of the Popular Auteur

D.W. Griffith, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles are a few examples of early auteurs. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Stephen Spielberg became popular in the ’60s and ’70s, along with James Cameron and Ron Howard in the late ’70s. Digital video has given people a much easier chance to get ahold of the unique films produced by these directors.

7: Multiple Releases

While new and revised releases of older films have always been a way for the industry and filmmakers to make new profits and show improved versions of their films, it’s only in the DVD and digital age that multiple versions and re-releases of films are possible on a large scale. Movie companies release film to DVD in several different editions. Improvements in special-effects technology, for example, led to the mid-’90s theatrical release of the classic “Star Wars” trilogy, and subsequent releases.

6: Behind the Scenes

Of course, even when the selling point for a given film is something other than the director or creative team behind the movie, we still show an interest in learning more about the process of making the movie. This is enjoyable for, and now expected by, consumers, but it also makes sense to the studios, who like to give us as much incentive as possible to buy the DVD by loading it with things you can’t find anywhere else.

5: Brand and Franchise Extension

While there have always been sequels to mega-films, particularly beginning with the age of the blockbuster in the ’70s, the DVD has given all kinds of new dimensions to the idea of the franchise. Before home video, a film might produce a sequel if it was particularly successful at the box office — but with new films coming out weekly, a movie might not stay in theaters long enough to justify a second production.

4: Cult Films and TV Shows

As DVD production became cheaper and cheaper, more and more movies from the past have begun to surface as digital copies. Some studios dedicate their time to restoring old classics, and cult films to digital formats such as The Criterion Collection. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions. Criterion is also known for taking great lengths to restore and clean all films released on their label. In addition, full seasons of TV shows have begun to pop up as DVD box sets, full with bonus features that fans can purchase.

3: Music Licensing and Duplication

Because sale of a DVD means sale of the music contained on that DVD, films (and television shows) must contend with music and soundtrack licensing, as well as publishing rights and other artist revenues. Because of the importance of music and how it relates to the movie, show, or story, many companies include DVD and online streaming clauses

2: Online offline tie-ins

DVD technology has also responded to our expanding entertainment universe. Where once films stood or fell based on their box office standings, now every movie is an opportunity to develop a world that takes advantage of both online and offline technologies. While classic merchandising products like toys and novelizations still make a lot of money for movie producers, the possibility of taking that experience online means the only limit is the creativity of the franchise team.

1: Theft, Bootlegging

Of course, the digital format has its problems. DVDs can be hacked easily, copied and shared, and even the classic hand-filmed theater bootleg is much easier to sell or share now that digital networks are the norm. Peer-to-peer sharing, bit torrents and the rest of the modern pirate’s toolkit mean studios spend a great deal of money tracking down offenders and making trouble for them.

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Converting 8mm video tapes like Video8, Hi8, and Digital8 tapes can actually be pretty confusing, especially if you have different types of tapes. Having multiple different tape formats can cause problems because not all camcorders are capable of playing each format. The earlier camcorders are typically only able to support Video8 and Hi-8 tapes. I’ve compiled a list of Sony camcorders that will support all formats of 8mm tapes. These are the best camcorders to look for if you plan to transfer video tapes to DVD or your computer.

Post in the comments what camera you prefer, or use to transfer your camcorder tapes to DVD!

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