Should I transfer to DVD or Digital Files?

So you have some films or videos clogging up your storage area and you’d like to both get rid of the clutter and also be able to actually see them again.  With the ever changing digital era you may ask, “what should be done with them”; “should I get a DVD or something else?”  Leave A Legacy is here to help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of transferring to DVD versus digital files.

What is a transfer to DVD anyway?  We call this a playable DVD as it will easily play on any DVD or Blu-ray drive/player. We can either do a straight transfer (direct transfer from video tape to DVD) or we can do what we call an edited transfer (digital capture to computer, edit the footage, then burn a DVD).

Pros of transfers to DVD:

1. DVDs should easily play in your computer or DVD player.
2. It is less expensive and very straight forward.
3. Easy to make copies to share with friends and family (as long as you and your computer know how to). Leave A Legacy, Inc. can easily make copies for you as well.
4. To get the digital files off of the DVD and onto your computer you can “rip” the discs. This will give you files that your computer can edit/modify, with the right software. Though “ripping” sounds rather violent it does not harm your DVD.

Cons of transfers to DVD:

1. Many computers don’t come with DVD players anymore and your tablet and phone certainly can’t play a DVD.
2. You can’t edit/modify the DVDs.
3. You can’t email them to friends or upload to the cloud in their current state

What is a transfer to digital files anyway?  We play your video and capture the audio and video signals directly to a computer. Then we pull it into a video editing program, do any edits that you would like, and then export them as either mpg4 files (for MAC users) or mpg2 files (for PC users).  We like to put these files on an external hard drive and not on a flash drive.

Why we don’t use a flash drive for this?  Flash drives are typically formatted as FAT 32 which means that even if the drive is large enough it limits the size of each file to 4GB.  Generally any video longer than 15 minutes won’t go on a flash drive.

We can either provide the external drive for you (our rate as of 2017 is $80 for a 1TB drive) or you can provide your own drive.

Pros of Digital Files:

1. You can edit/modify the files however you like on your computer. You will need video editing software to do this (iMovie for MAC users and Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere, and others for PC)
   1. You can burn your own custom DVDs
   2. You can export segments to put up on youtube or share on the cloud
2. You can watch each video file on your computer (Quick Time for MAC and Windows Media Player for PC) or with Apple TV. You can also watch them on your tablet or phone.
3. They don’t require a DVD player.

Cons of Digital Files:

1. This transfer method costs a bit more
2. Files take up a lot of hard drive space
3. You can’t easily play the video on your TV, like a movie
4. You may think “I hate my computer and it hates me. I just want to watch my movies.”

We can transfer all sorts of old media to DVDs or digital files including: VHS transfer, VHSC transfer, 8mm tape transfer, Hi8 tape transfer,  miniDV tape transfer, BetaCAM transfer, BetaMAX transfer, U-matic transfer (3/4″ tape transfer),  8mm film transfer, super 8mm film transfer, 16mm film transfer.

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