Editing at Home VideOccasions creates Mac and PC-friendly computer files from your tapes and DVDs We've received many phone calls in the last year asking "How can I get video I've taken of my family on holiday into my computer so I can edit it?" This question seems to be especially perplexing for Mac owners, whose iMovie editing software requires .MOV files (read all about this at the iMovie site) and for folks who have no means of playing digital video tapes or of ingesting digital video from their camera's tape, hard drive or flash card into their computer. VideOccasions has the answer! Bring us your video -- VHS, 8mm, Hi8 and Digital 8 or miniDV tapes, as well as DVDs and your camera -- and we'll convert them to a format you can edit on your computer, Mac or PC. If your camera has a hard drive we'll need the camera, the cables and power supply that came with it, any accompanying software and the instruction book. If it uses memory cards, bring us the cards, card reader and its power supply and accompanying software.

There are three ways we can create editable files on your computer for you from your tapes, DVDs and camera hard drives and flash cards:

1. We can copy your video onto an external hard drive that you bring us. (PC or Apple) Ideally your hard drive should be formatted as NTFS rather than FAT 32 as the latter has a 4gb file size limit and may not accept large video files. Video files that are larger than 4gb -- about 15-18 minutes -- may be broken into 4gb units by a FAT 32 system and possibly not recordable at all. If in doubt, go to "My Computer," hi-light the directory name, right click and then left click on "Properties" at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

2. We can create a data DVD, a DVD that contains files that will play on your computer and allow you to edit with the editing software of your choice. (PC or Apple) A data DVD will not play on your DVD player. It will only play in your computer. Think of it as a Word file, only containing video instead of writing. A data DVD can only hold about 19 minutes of video, however, unlike a regular DVD that can hold up to two hours.

3. We can copy small video files onto a flash drive.(PC or Apple) Owing to the large size of video files -- about 13.5gb per hour of material -- flash drives are only useful when a very small amount of video is to be downloaded.

Cost Because file conversion is both labor and computationally intense, requiring the ingestion of tapes in real time -- e.g., two hours for a two hour tape -- followed by the conversion process which may take longer to do than the playing time of the tapes, we charge for format conversion at a rate similar to what we would charge for creating a DVD: $25 for converting a tape or DVD half an hour or less in length $40 for converting a tape or DVD 30 to 60 minutes $50 for converting a tape or DVD 60 to 120 minutes

Please drop us an email or, better still, give us a call at 425-641-4811 to discuss your specific needs.

And if editing at home sounds too daunting, talk with us about having Jack or Judy work with you to produce exactly what you've imagined, whether adding music to old films you've had transferred to digital tape, creating a photo montage or getting those priceless family video tapes into a format that everyone can now enjoy, a DVD.

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Last modified 11/30/10