Home Movie Film to DVD Transfer

I got a lot of questions last week regarding 16mm and 8mm Home Movie Film Transfer to DVD so I thought that I would post a blog today answering some of those questions.

But first the pitch...

Simply put, our film transfer service is the best way to enjoy your 8mm film, Super 8 film, and 16mm film all over again! Sure, you can drag out your old projector and watch them like you used to-40 years ago. But why do you want to risk ruing the film with a super hot bulb or damaging sprocket drivers--thereby ensuring that no one can enjoy the film ever again. And do you really want to be changing a reel every 3 to 10 minutes? Of course not. And sure you can have the big discount warehouses and superstores transfer your film to DVD, but do you want to have a transfer that produces a lower quality image with dull and muted colors and fuzzy images or includes all the leader or film with no images? Or worse yet having your film sent to Mexico or India for transfer and run the risk that it will be lost in transit, lost in factory, or switched with the customer from Biloxi, Mississippi, or Barcelona, Spain? Of course not, so you NEED to bring McKenna Video your film to transfer.

We bring your old home movies back to life by transferring them to DVD. We use the latest digital frame-by-frame transfer method, which produces stunning, ultra high quality DVDs with an extremely clear and crisp picture (relative to the quality of your film to start with). We add background music (at no extra cost to you!) to produce truly heart-warming results. We can also put your film on VHS tapes if you prefer (I don't recommend this as VHS is about 1/2 the resolution of DVD). These images of your family are irreplaceable. We understand that and will treat them as if they were our own. Don't settle for inferior transfer methods like direct capture or "project and record"! Let McKenna Video Services digitally master your home movies and preserve them for generations to come.

Here's what to do:

1) Gather your home movies. Go ahead! Venture into the attic, basement, or closet and retrieve that dusty box of home movies;

2) Put them in order that you would like to view them on your disc. Alternatively, we can randomize the order if you prefer;

3) Call McKenna Video Services to schedule a time to bring them to our studio (mail order also available);

4) Bring or send your films to McKenna Video Services. We'll accept your film and your payment and give you an estimated time to complete the transfer;

5) When complete, you'll pick up your film and new DVD and bring them home with a bag of popcorn for viewing in the comfort of your living room.


And now, here are some of the more common questions that we get regarding film to DVD transfer.

HOW MUCH FILM DO I HAVE?

There are 3 common reel sizes, although other sizes were sometimes used. A 3-inch reel will hold 50-feet of film, a 5-inch reel holds 200-feet, and a 7-inch reel holds 400-feet.


CAN I EDIT MY FILM BEFORE IT IS TRANSFERRED?

If you wish to edit your film prior to bringing it to us you are free to do so. Once we receive the film, we process every foot we receive. Once transferred into a digital format, we will normally edit out excessive periods of under or overexposed film if there are no viewable images before we master a final disc.

If you wish to edit your content further, we can assist with that after we digitize the film. We can have you back into the studio for editing and sometimes we provide a "preview disc" with instructions for you to take home and view before sitting down with us to edit.


I WANT TO EDIT MY OWN FILM AND MASTER MY OWN DVD-WHAT CAN YOU DO?

A lot of our customers want to master their own DVDs-we just need to know that at the onset. Once digitized, we can transfer your unedited film to a mini-dv tape or a hard-drive as a Quicktime .mov (preferred) or Window Media .wmv file. We can even create mp4's if you wish to share your film on Facebook, youtube or other social media sites.


I HAVE SPECIFIC NEEDS FOR MY MENUS, CHAPTERS, TITLES, BACKGROUND MUSIC, ETC. CAN YOU HELP WITH THAT?

Certainly. Our goal is provide you with exactly what you want-something our competition won't do. We will conform your disc to your exact specifications.


HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

Film transfer is a time consuming process. We normally ask for about 3 to 4 weeks, depending on your requirements, how much film you have, and what we have in queue. We do offer rush services if needed.


IS IT SAFE? WILL I RECEIVE MY FILM BACK?

Film is not destroyed or damaged in the process. We return everything that you bring to us: film, reels, cans.


CAN YOU TRANSFER TO BLU-RAY?

Yes, we can transfer to blu-ray disc for you, but it does not increase the quality of the film. Home movie film never offered high resolution, so using a high-def transfer is not worth the added expense, in my opinion. Blu-ray offers the ability to store much great amounts of film on one disc, instead of many.


HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Exact pricing depends of the type of film you have and the services that you order. Please call us at (253) 539-3438 for an estimate.


I hope this helps you understand the film conversion to DVD process a little bit better. As always, don't hesitate to call or send an email for more information.

Blessings,

Chris

Outbreak Preview

Swine Flu, H1N1, SARS, TB and a plethora of other contagious diseases are not in the news cycle too much these days. The economy and the upcoming elections seem to be dominating, but that doesn't mean that we should not be concerned with the spread of disease.

Last year we produced a video entitled "OUTBREAK: What Every Employee Should Know" with our friend Jan Decker of Crisis Management Consulting year as a response to the increasing threat of the spread of contagious disease because of bad hygiene and personal practices in the workplace.

At about 15 minutes in length, this video is a must for all employers and can be viewed in staff and employee meetings. You can purchase on-line at our collaborative website High Note Video. $39.95. Call directly for volume discounts 253-539-3438 (McKenna Video) or 253-261-2704 (Jan Decker) or to arrange an on-line viewing session.

Blessings,

Chris

Hearts for Zambia

We recently completed a small edit/subtitle/voiceover project for Hearts for Zambia. We were drawn to their mission and the children that this great charity helps. We encourage you to visit their site and learn more about what they do. Please consider how you might support their mission if you are touched as much as we were.

http://www.heartsforzambia.org/

Blessings,

Chris.

Chris McKenna Photography New Site

Many of you know that besides doing all that I do with video, I am also a professional photographer. I love photography just as much as I do video, but for very different reasons. I shoot weddings, portraits, sports, boudoir, etc.--just about anything with a willing subject.

For the last couple of years I have had 2 different websites. One of those websites was one that I was "renting" (at a very high annual rate I might add) and the other was one that I coded and was maintaining myself. Neither of those sites were working very well for us so we made the decision last year to scrap them both and get a new one live by February 1 of this year.

We had decided that we would hire a "professional" developer to take over the design and development since I have actual work to do, that is working for you. We had been working with another developer on our High Note Video site, but he had dropped the ball midway through that process so we looked for another. In December, I was approached by another fellow and since his rates were reasonable and his promises were high, we decided to go with him.

Well, sad to say that he dropped the ball, and dropped in big time. He kept making promise after promise after promise and he broke them all and missed all 7 of his self-imposed deadlines. So once again, I was forced to take over the design and development myself.

So after much adieu, I am pleased to announce that the new Chris McKenna Photography website is live and ready for business. I would encourage you to visit it, check out our galleries, comment on some of the more recent entries, and let us know if there is anything that we can do to help you out.

Blessings,

Chris

P.S. We are contemplating moving this blog over to the McKenna Video Services site. What do you think about that?

My Review of the Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V

One of the newest point-and-shoot cameras to hit the market is the Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V. It was so new, in fact, that the first 2 stores I went to to get it didn’t have any except the floor model-even though those stores were advertising it and said they had it in stock (what they wanted to do was get me into the store to buy it with a promise to deliver-that doesn’t fly in my book). Anyway, I am not going to bore you with the a lot of the the mundane technical details regarding the camera, because 1) if you are reading MY blog you probably wouldn’t care about all those details and 2) if you did understand them you may not care. You might be just interested in weather this is a good camera or not. Read on for my conclusion.

So, first of all this is not Sony’s flagship camera despite its price tag of $350. That honor is reserved for the Cybershot DSC-HX100V, but this camera is the highest-end camera Sony is releasing in its traditional all-in-one body. The HX9V is powered by en Exmor R CMOS sensor chip and boasts an impressive 16.2 megapixel resolution.

Sony claims that the camera has a 16X optical zoom. In my test, this was plenty for the everyday snapshot, but failed to offer sufficient zoom in my sports test. I felt that the zoom was very sluggish but from what I understand Sony will fix this with a firmware update.

The LCD screen in the back measured 3 inches-sufficient for most shooters. I used the camera in bright sunlight and found that the resolution and brightness to be wonderfully sufficient to see what I was doing (there is no viewfinder on this camera). The LCD is not a touch screen so all changes must be managed through the click wheel on the back.

One nice feature that this camera offers is the “panoramic” function which gives shooters the ability to capture almost a 180-degree field of view without having to work about stitching them together in Photoshop or other imaging program-the camera did that automatically! A couple photographs that I took with this camera are at the bottom of the post.

I found that the various picture settings were easy to navigate through and the camera provided good jpeg (JPG) image all around if you let the camera focus before you take the photograph (being a sports shooter I am always trying wanting to snap the camera before it was ready-my problem not the cameras). The scene settings were very easy to understand and dial in. But like with everything else, read the manual before trying to change the settings to something you don’t fully understand. And for the more advanced shooters, there is enough manual control to keep you happy.

One of the primary reasons I wanted to try this camera out was for the video function and in a word: adequate. Keep in mind that I am also a professional video shooter and editor so I was primarily interested in exporting the video out of the camera so I can edit it and then export my edited videos to DVD or other formats. So, let me rephrase with a couple more words: great for the everyday shooter. But use a tripod or your video will be as shaky as my examples below.

This camera shoots at 1920×1080 and smaller formats so the picture is crisp and clear. The colors were bright and vibrant and the audio was good. Sony’s website claims the video format at MP4, but it really shoots AVCHD. That allows for greater compression, thus saving memory space on the card and allowing for more photo’s and/or video. However, AVCHD minimizes what the user can do with it.

I was able to pull the video right off the memory card and upload it to Youtube (Test 1 below) and Facebook without any problems whatsoever. I was also able to use the software that Sony provides with the camera to upload directly to Youtube (test 2) but the software truncated the clip and did not upload it in its entirety (the girl wearing the #6 black shirt actually scores at the end of the clip).

In using the software that comes with the camera I was able to burn my clips directly to a DVD from a Windows based PC, but that function does not exist on a Mac (Sony may address this in future updates). In fact, I couldn’t do anything with the clips on my Mac. I couldn’t play them, I couldn’t convert them to a more usable format, import them into my video editor-nothing. I did not try any of that on my PC as I was so frustrated with the lack of Mac functionality with the video that I gave up. And as a sidenote, on the DVD I could hear the lens motor working every time I either pulled the zoom in or out. That was annoying and would be completely unacceptable if the video was something more meaningful than a soccer game.

And for what its worth, I did not use one of Sony’s propriety memory cards that the clerk was pushing on me. I purchased a high-speed 8 gigabyte SD card as an alternative and saved myself a few bucks. I didn’t have any problems with the SD card, but would have loved to run a comparison nonetheless.

So in conclusion, I thought that this was a decent point-and-shoot camera and offered shooters a lot of flexibility to take some very nice photographs without having to step into the DSLR world. It may be a little bit on the pricey side but certainly worth the extra few dollars to get the extra functions. Don’t buy the camera for video function and if you don’t need Sony’s bundled software to transfer your photographs to your computer then don’t use it.

TEST VIDEO 1

TEST VIDEO 2