Choosing the right format depends on your goal. If you simply want to archive the film and be able to easily play it, then DVD is the best format. Video on DVD will not degrade over time. We use professional DVDs that are scratch proof. These DVDs are 100 times less likely to scratch and will last a minimum of 50 years.

Example DVD Menu: 5 minute chapters Thumbnail picture per chapter Start on any chapter

Editing Formats

We offer the following formats for editing purposes:

Bronze, Silver & Gold Process:  MiniDV, Digital 8, AVI or DVD
Platinum HD Process:  HDV or HD 4:2:2 Uncompressed Files
for support, click here

Bronze, Silver & Gold Process:

Traditionally, DVD has not been a format that you could edit from. That has now changed with Pinnacle Studio 10 software. Studio 10 now allows you to import the video from a playable DVD. Studio 10 can be purchased at computer retail stores like Best Buy or can be downloaded from their site at http://www.pinnaclesys.com.

Editing footage from DVD is acceptable for most of our customers. It is true that DVD is more compressed than a digital tape. Most customers would never know the difference and you have to write it out to DVD at some point. If, however, you are looking for the very best quality master to edit from, then we offer the following formats: MiniDV Tape, Digital 8 Tape (Requires you to have a MiniDV or Digital 8 Camcorder) and AVI files on an external Hard Drive. You must ship us an external hard drive or purchase one on the order form if you choose AVI files. If you need help calculating the disk space you'll need for the transfer, click here.

You may want to consider getting a copy on a playable DVD in addition to the format you choose to edit from. This way you archive the film and have a format you can edit. If you want to do this, choose the format for editing as the master format and the DVD as the copy format on the order form. Our copies are master quality. We go back to the master file and completely render the video to the copy format. We never make one format using another (making the DVD from MiniDV tape) like many other companies do. So, we charge a little more but the quality will be better.

Platinum HD Process:

Most customers choose HDV master files. HDV is already the industry standard format for high definition video cameras. The HDV files can be easily edited on today's computers. The HDV files cannot be played by today's DVD players. The files must be read onto a computer for editing. Today, there are a number of programs that support HDV (Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus, Premier Pro, Edius Pro 3, Pinnacle Liquid, Final Cut Pro, and iMovie for example). The HDV files are delivered on a Hard Drive. You must ship us an external hard drive or purchase one on the order form if you choose HDV files. If you need help calculating the disk space you'll need for the transfer, click here.

In addition to HDV, we offer Fully Uncompressed 4:2:2 HD video files. The data and compute requirements are much higher which is why this is typically only ordered by broadcasters or professional post production facilities. Editing uncompressed HD video requires a workstation class computer with 2 to 4 processors and 2 to 4 GB of RAM. You must ship us an external hard drive or purchase one on the order form if you choose uncompressed HD files. If you need help calculating the disk space you'll need for the transfer, click here.

We do not offer High Definition DVDs yet. There are 2 competing HD DVD formats and HD DVD players will only support 1 format. The movie studios and computer manufacturers are split on the two formats. It may be 2-3 years before we have a winner. In the future, you will be able to write out to HD DVD or Blu-Ray DVD from either HDV or uncompressed HD files.