Video Editing From Your HD Camera
You just came back from a trip to the Grand Canyon and took a lot of video and photographs. Maybe you used videotape from your old Video 8mm or your Mini DV. Or maybe you bought one of those nifty new HD cameras that shoots video and stills. If you did, you might have 150 or so little video files & 200 or so photos on the little SD card. Maybe it’s FULL & all you want is to have a finished DVD presentation of your trip. You feel lost? Don’t. Call DTV.
Bring your Camera in if you have a Hard Drive Camera or if you haven’t got a clue what you have. Make sure that you bring along any power supplies, special cables and chips you might have too. It will likely be needed. We’ll transfer all of the material from your equipment to ours to process your order. Once we are finished and you have received your final product, we can scrub your systems memories clean, if you would like us to, so you can head on off to your next adventure with a fresh amount of space to record your memories. Cell phone videos too can be made into DVD’s. The better the quality in, the better the quality out.
A short lesson we call “VIDEO FORMATS 101”
Analog videotapes come in a lot of different varieties depending on when they were recorded and by whom. In the analog broadcast world for example, the most common tape formats after 1 inch reels, ¾ inch and ½ inch reels from the 1960’s and 70’s came the cartridge tapes. The ¾ inch, the ¾ SP, BetaCam and BetaCam SP. We offer conversion from the analog cartridge tapes, ¾ inch Umatic, SP, BetaCam and Beta SP.
Betamax was the first video introduced to the consumer in the mid late 1970’s. Many people who invested in the format did so because it was, well, all there was other than the “clunky” super 8mm sound movie systems. Sony’s Betamax is a high quality recording but wasn’t nearly as popular here in the USA as it was abroad, especially when the competition of the lower priced VHS was introduced. We still see a lot of Betamax tapes from customers and are mostly being used in Cuba and in South America. We have Betamax too, if you do.
VHS entered the scene in the late 70’s, and as technology progressed, consumers would appreciate the smaller camcorders that played smaller VHS cartridges known as VHS-C. Instead of a full 120 minutes on SP, the VHS-C could record a 20 or a 30 minute tape on SP speed. The VHS picture improved as Super VHS became the next popular “format de jour”. About a week later (probably not kidding) Video 8, then Hi8mm followed by Digi8mm were on the market with improved image sensors, better lenses and using less light. These machines were even smaller in size and offered the 120 minute SP recording tape, something missed by most consumers. The Digi8 was the first foray into the digital consumer video world, and it wasn’t enormously popular. Can you guess that we have all of these formats too at DTV? We do.
Micro DV & Mini DV were next on the scene. The Micro DV lasted about 6 months in the mainstream and never caught on as it was an expensive Sony product that tried to compete with equipment almost as good, quality wise, and at half the price. Enter the Mini DV. The last tape (digital) product for the consumer. DTV has BOTH MicroDV and Mini DV formats, if you do.
So, in summation, DTV Home Movie Transfers has all of the popular (and unpopular) formats of video recording that you will probably have in your possession and can readily digitize them.
Video can be delivered to you in many forms and formats. The most common for viewing on TV is a DVD. We also can give you video in formats to use on the Internet and in your computer should you like to challenge yourself (and your computer) to do a little editing on your own. If you haven’t edited in your computer before, you are in for a treat. In most cases the learning curve lasts much longer than most peoples patience!