Choosing the Finished Movie
Media
One of the most important aspects of transferring your memories is deciding
on the finished movie media.
We can make VCD, SVCD, DVD,
VHS Tape, Web Streaming. To help you choose
which will suit you best we have put together this list of the media, where
it will play and where it may not. If you wish you can email us the make and
model number of your DVD Player, we will then search our database to track down
the support of your particular DVD player.
For all types of media, except VHS, we can send you a test product to see if your machine is compatible with our products.
You can either scroll down all of the products, or use the above links to go straight to a particular one.
| Media | What can be put on it? | What will it play on? |
Video Compact Disc - We use this for archiving pictures or low quality video. Picture Slide show - The
CD is very useful for the archiving of pictures. It can be made as a VCD,
which will allow you to play the pictures on your television, through
a DVD player, as a slide show. Video - We can burn video to CD's, hence the name, video compact disc. Generally we can fit nearly one hour of film onto a VCD. Again we can add whichever extras you require, see choosing extras. The compression to get the video to fit on a standard cd is quite high, and this will affect the overall quality, although there are other matters which need to be considered, it will not compare to the quality of a DVD. The size of the movie is set at half that of a standard DVD movie. Due to the relative cost of CD's to DVD's, this is a good option if you want multiple copies to be made, but not the option if quality is your main concern. Once complete this type of disc cannot have any more information added. Pictures - We can also save the pictures to a CD in standard jpeg or tiff format. It will not play on a DVD player. You will be able to access the pictures using your pc's software. For example Windows XP has a slide show programme that you can choose to use after inserting your CD. Depending on the quality and size of the pictures we are given then you could save several hundred photographs to one CD. For Pictures only, if you wish, we can leave this type of production open and save more photographs to the disc as you take them. This will sometimes lead to the disc not opening properly in some older pc's, in which case, simply closing it will enable it to work, but will not allow any more pictures to be saved. |
This type of disc can be played back on virtually all modern DVD players and all computers using Windows Media Player, or similar. If you are unsure you can email details of your DVD player to us and we will check the compatibility of it for you. If we cannot find this information we can supply a sample disc for you to try. |
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Super Video Compact Disc - This can also be used for archiving pictures or video. Most of the VCD information applies to SVCD. Picture Slide show - Video - This format offers slightly better quality of video on to a CD. As the quality is better, this reduces the amount of pictures or video that can be stored on one disc. Other than the quality everything is the same as VCD. SVCD can store approximately 30 minutes of movie, and around 150 pictures, (In the slide show format). Once complete this type of disc cannot have any more information added. Pictures - We can also save the pictures to a CD in standard jpeg or tiff format. It will not play on a DVD player. You will be able to access the pictures using your pc's software. For example Windows XP has a slide show programme that you can choose to use after inserting your CD. Depending on the quality and size of the pictures we are given then you could save several hundred photographs to one CD. For Pictures only, if you wish, we can leave this type of production open and save more photographs to the disc as you take them. This will sometimes lead to the disc not opening properly in some older pc's, in which case, simply closing it will enable it to work, but will not allow any more pictures to be saved. |
This type of disc can be played back on most modern DVD players and all computers using Windows Media Player, or similar. If you are unsure you can email details of your DVD player to us and we will check the compatibility of it for you. If we cannot find this information we can supply a sample disc for you to try. |
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| DVD | Digital Versatile Disc - This is used where you want the ultimate in quality. It depends on the quality of the source material, but if you use a digital camcorder or camera then you will find it hard to distinguish from a commercial DVD. Picture Slide show - DVD's can hold around 300 pictures in slide show format, or up to 2 hours of Movie. It depends on the extras you choose, see here. Video - DVD's give the most flexibility for creativity. You can choose from all the extras we supply, including a menu page with chapters, allowing instant access to various parts of the movie, just like the DVD's you buy in the shops. Pictures - We can also save the pictures to a DVD in standard jpeg or tiff format. It will not play on a DVD player. You will be able to access the pictures using your pc's software. For example Windows XP has a slide show programme that you can choose to use after inserting your DVD. Due to the capacity difference in a DVD to CD you can store about 7 times as many pictures on a DVD. In all of the above productions, once complete a DVD cannot have any more information added. |
This type of disc will play on virtually all modern DVD players. We have the ability to write to both of the popular formats, so can almost guarantee to be able to please you. DVD's will also play on a computer, but you will need DVD ROM player and software installed. All new pc's will have these and most modern pc's will. If you are unsure, please call us with details of your pc.
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| VHS Tape | Picture Slide show - We can make a picture slide show and save it to VHS tape. It will show about 300 pictures per hour, if you choose to have the standard 10 second time that we use. Again we can supply a full range of extras, such as transitions and background music, that make the slide show more enjoyable to watch. Video - We can take your filmed movies and transfer them to VHS tape for you, virtually all the extras are open to you, such as editing, transitions, background music. See here for a full list.You cannot have a menu and chapter points. The quality of VHS is not up to DVD, but will compare with that of any VHS film you will buy from the shops. |
VHS tapes will play in all VHS tape players |
| Web Streaming | WE can prepare any of your picture slide shows or movies for web streaming. Depending on your Web Host, we can make the movies to a variety of sizes, and in most of the major formats. Although Windows formats will allow most people using standard pc's to see them. This is an ideal way of letting members of the family who are situated across the world see your special events, be it a wedding, birthday or snippets of the baby growing up. Many people will swap the movies they put on the web on a regular basis. Bear in mind, free web space is size limited and this means the quality of the movie is never brilliant, but is always acceptable. See our Sample Page for an idea of the type of finished product available. |
You will need a computer that
is connected to the internet and already be registered with an ISP. AOL / Freeserve / BT Openworld are examples of ISP's. All of these give you an amount of free web space. This web space will have to allow you to stream movies, many do. We can advise on this for you, if you supply us with your ISP name. |
We use top quality branded media, so that we can produce a quality product for your enjoyment. All our finished articles come in a suitable case which has a cover identifying it to you. We do not affix labels to CD/DVD's as this can cause problems with the disc being read in certain machines, and we have found instances where the disc label has started to detach itself from the disc, which can cause no end of damage to a player if it gets stuck inside. As and when technology produces a satisfactory way of labeling discs, we will adopt it when it has be proven to meet out high quality standards.
Please bear in mind when choosing your finished movie media, that a good quality
source product will produce a good quality end product. If the source material
is old, damaged, blurred, out of focus, grainy etc, then we will do our best
to remove these problems and supply you with a finished product that you can
enjoy. If we are producing a DVD for you from a VHS tape, then the finished
movie on DVD will be limited to the quality of the recording made on VHS. We
have lots of equipment to help, but we cannot perform miracles.
If you are about to video / photograph a special event, then upon booking our
services for producing your finished movie, we will supply any reasonable amount
of free advice you need in order that the quality of the filming/photograph
taking is of a good enough standard to supply you with a top quality end product.