"Wait, Blu-Ray Disc? Really? Isn't that just for High Definition footage? I thought transferring to DVD was the only tape-to-disc option." As it turns out, it's not. In fact, it may be the worst available option for more than one reason.
A couple of years ago, a customer from the KC area contacted me in hopes that I could help her transfer nearly 50 VHS-C tapes full of home movies that were pushing 20-30 years old to some kind of digital format (she hadn't quite decided which yet). She told me all of the places she contacted in her area - which were very likely storefront business - were charging what she considered to be an exorbitant amount of money to transfer each tape to a disc. To be frank, if you have a large collection of tapes, the final ticket can be pretty high. As I said it's been a couple of years ago now, but if I remember correctly, in her case they quoted a series of 18 to 20 DVDs with a copy of each of them for her 2 kids (who are now grown) for a grand total of 54 to 60 DVDs for over $1700 (WHAT??).
After discussing options with her and finding out what kind of disc players she owned, I helped her come to the most appropriate decision for her situation and had her send me the box of tapes. A week later, this (in the attached video) is what I sent back to her when I returned her original tapes. More than 35 hours of family history condensed down to a *manageable* set of four custom-printed, 10-hr Blu-Ray discs - all held in a single custom-printed case. In addition, I was able to provide 2 copies of that set for her kids and STILL saved her nearly $1,000.
If you find yourself shopping around for this service, you may find that almost NO ONE is offering Blu-Ray for analog video transfers. That's because everyone considers Blu-Ray to be *only* for HD footage. NOT TRUE!! When produced for the same quality as a DVD, a Blu-Ray disc becomes essentially the same as a 10-hr DVD for all that old Standard-Def footage (Blu-Ray Disc Player needed, of course). And THAT'S how they get you. They charge you for a big stack of DVDs that only hold up to 2 hours each.
And here's the kicker: Even if you don't own a Blu-Ray Disc player, if you have a large enough collection of tapes, *it would still be cheaper* to just buy an $80 player and get Blu-Ray discs of your tapes than it would be to get DVDs of them. And *even cheaper still*, if you don't need discs at all, I can just load an MP4 video file for each tape onto a USB flash drive for you to store, share, and view from a computer or mobile device.
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