QUESTION #1: I have a VHS cassette of our home movies done several years ago and I also have the original 8mm films that were duplicated in that process. Should I just have you duplicate the VHS cassette to digital and save a ton of bucks or should I give you the films to duplicate?
ANSWER #1: It depends on what you would like to get from your duplication. If the memories are only of a passing interest, you should merely have the VHS cassette duplicated to digital and save a ton of bucks. However, if your interest is in saving legacy family heirloom memories, there is no question that you should let us duplicate the original films to digital.
QUESTION #2: Is there any way that I can compare the two to see what the difference is before I spend the big bucks?
ANSWER #2: Yes. Our standard optinal complimentary practice with home movie films is to put up low resolution watermarked versions of each on a password protected proofing site (wcpview.com) for you to view. At that time (irrelevant of any comparison interests) you can decline or accept any one or all films. You pay nothing for the films you decline but you get all your films back. This means that you can view your films online and compare with the online verson of the corresponding VHS cassette.
QUESTION #3: What differences should I expect in every case?
ANSWER #3: The VHS cassette resolution is far exceeded by the ordinary video resolutions existing at the time of this composition. You will notice a difference in every case. However, we at W. Cardone Productions maintain (and have maintained since 2005) that the quality of our duplications are as good as it gets. We have also always claimed to be AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE better than 50% of the other service providers and noticeably better than the next 40%. We do concede that there are other providers (the remaining 10%) yielding equal imaging quality to ours.
There are those who would like to make som money and realize that they have a movie projector and a video camcorder and think that it is all that they need to duplicate home movie film for profit. Their intent is to shine the projector on the wall and point the video camera at the projection. This results in a yellowish haze that pervades the entire video not to mention a rolling bar.
Once in a while we get such a cassette done by the “shining on the wall” technique. Below is a side-by-side comparison of what difference to expect.
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