Many of us have a lot of great home movies of important family memories. It is unfortunate that many of these home movies are wasting away as I write you this sentence because of the limitations of the various magnetic tape formats. VHS, Super-VHS, VHS-C, Hi-8, 8mm video, Digital 8, and other magnetic tape formats lose fidelity over time. To save these important memories you need to transfer your home movies to a more stable format before it is too late. In other words, you need to transfer the analog video to digital video.

Although you could conduct the digital transfer yourself using a variety of software and hardware and external devices that you could purchase, I would strongly recommend a professional transfer service instead. These companies have invested enormous amounts of money on state-of-the-art equipment to provide their customers with the best quality possible. They digitize a great deal of material on a weekly basis and, as a result, they get really very good at it.

These digital transfer houses utilize much better equipment than the equipment that you or I could afford to purchase. And these professionals also can afford more than your local hobbyist who uses amateur methods that are not always even satisfactory. This amateur quality is only multiplied when film is the original format that is being transferred to digital video.

That said there are some really great digital transfer companies that offer fantastic results and competitive prices. If you want your material transferred directly to DVD, then one of the more economical services is probably for you. Home Movie Depot and Yes Video are two of the best of the economical transfer houses. They can provide you with a DVD copy of your home movies. This includes a menu and chapter headings.

However, if you want to edit your home movies after they are digitized, you will need your analog video converted to high-quality uncompressed files on a hard drive or data DVD. The methods and equipment used by these high-end companies surpass those of the other guys. In some cases the equipment is the same kind used on Hollywood movies that you see on your local movie theater screen. As with almost any product or service, the better the digital transfer service, the higher the price. Paying more could be what it takes to preserve your family's home movies for another generation. Good luck!

Recently one of my relatives passed away. In their garage we found a large box filled with old 8mm films. These films contained footage of my parents, and other more distant relatives, from a long time ago. In fact, some of the relatives on the films had long since passed away. We were anxious to watch the old movies, but our relative didn't have the equipment to play them on. We only had the old films themselves. In addition, some of the films looked like they were in pretty rough shape from being in the garage. We didn't want to damage them further by trying to watch them.

My Aunt Mary found out from a friend of hers that you can have something called a custom video transfer done to the old films. To do the video transfer, a professional takes the images from the old film and transfers them over onto more current media, a video cassette or DVD. By doing the media transfer you can then view the new media on the equipment you have in your house, and it also has then preserved the images from your old film. You won't need to be concerned with them becoming further damaged.

Thankfully each of the films we found was labeled as to what they contained. Some of them we wanted to preserve more than others, so we chose the ones we most wanted to do the video transfer process on. We took those to a professional company who moved them to VHS tape and DVD.

The day we all gathered around to watch the old movies brought to life on our TV was a day the whole family will always remember. For the first time, I saw moving images of my grandfather who had died before I was born. It was truly amazing.

My Aunt wanted to share our new videos with some relatives who live in England. We found out though that there is something called International Video Standards which defines the four separate standards used for video in various parts of the world today. The US and England generally use a different standard.

Aunt Mary went back to the professional company who did our video transfer and found out that they had done what they call an International Video Standards Conversion to our videos. This International Video Standards Conversion allows for our new videos to be viewed anywhere in the world! She sent copies of the new videos to England, and we heard they all had a family gathering as well. They also laughed and cried along with the tapes, just as we had.

Since our 8mm films were transferred so successfully to the new videos, we have also chosen to move some of our VHS-C small tapes onto full VHS tapes and DVDs. We love having the VHS tapes and DVDs to take with us when we go to visit friends and family.

Our whole family has been very satisfied with the video transfer process. We have been telling others about it as well when they talk of their old family movies. It is really important to preserve the past the best we can for the generations to come.

A custom video transfer is available to preserve your old film to video to preserve your family history. Visit The Transfer Zone online at  for more information about a custom video transfer of your old film to tape or DVD.