The only practical or affordable way to preserve home videos is to convert them to a long lasting digital format. Once “digitized,” your home videos can be saved in a variety of digital formats: DVD, hard drive, digital videotape, etc. With an iMemories Online premium membership, iMemories will safeguard your home videos into a digital format allowing you to access the media at any time, or order it for use in any digital video format including DVD, digital video tape, external hard drive, or iPhone/iPod, or any other (mainstream) mobile media player device format (example: PSP).

Yes, we can transfer photo prints, negatives and 35mm slides to digital format. We have two levels of service: 1) you can have your picture or slide media digitally mastered to a digital photo file, or 2) you can also purchase a DVD photo slideshow, which runs on your TV set or computer as a video.

As a premium full service provider, iMemories is capable of converting any format of film, video or audio, including professional grade as well as international formats. In accordance with U.S. and international copyright laws, we cannot transfer or duplicate commercial copyrighted material, unless the copyright owner grants permission. To request a copyright permission form, e-mail copyright@imemories.com. We also will not process any footage that would be considered objectionable. If we do not transfer the home movie or photos for any of the preceding reasons, the associated transfer costs will be refunded.

Depending on the size of your project and the time of year (holidays are always busy), the average turnaround time for iMemories Preserve (transfer to DVDs) is 2-3 weeks. This takes into account the extras iMemories provides to create the highest quality product, as well as the time you contribute as “movie director” to guide the labeling and organization of the project to your satisfaction.

Yes. iMemories can accommodate rush orders for an additional fee of 20%. Rush order timing and availability is based on 1) customer involvement in project and, 2) realistic timing based on order size. Traditionally, rush orders can be completed in less than 2 weeks. Customers can also speed up the delivery of their order by upgrading to expedited FedEx shipping (next day or 2-day express).

Yes. You are welcome to provide your specific blend of recorded moments, and iMemories will digitally master the entire order and provide it all online for you to review, organize and publish to DVD.

No, there is no limit. iMemories can handle any size order.

Local providers can’t produce the ultra high quality custom DVD products that iMemories delivers. They do not have the advanced technology and skilled staff to execute the orders to the highest level – which is what you will want with your family memories. Additionally, local providers do not have iMemories Online for watching, sharing, labeling and organizing your media. So, they will require you to watch, organize and label your home videos and photos ahead of time – which is extremely time consuming and even impossible for most people (as they do not have the projector or video player required to review their home videos). “Local” doesn’t mean the provider is safer or that they will do a better job or even handle the media correctly. Because iMemories is the most sophisticated and capable provider available, shipping to iMemories is safer than taking your collection to a local transfer provider because of our attention to quality and our customer satisfaction track record, as well as the safety and reliability record of our shipping partner, FedEx.

Retail chains sometimes offer home videos to DVD transfer services. Over 99% will outsource (or ship out) your home videos to another provider. The quality of the final product is as you would expect, basic and very low end. Similar to other local providers (small business or residential address), you will have to do all of the up-front work. With retail chains, there is also increased risk of loss or damage to your home videos and/or photos as multiple companies are handling your order and the packaging and shipping process between the companies is not considered safe or reliable. In addition, retail photo lab employees are rarely educated on the home movie transfer process and provide little useful information other than some forms to fill out.

iMemories conducts all services in-house, where we control the entire process from start to finish. In addition, our studio is state-of-the-art and our products and services are considered best-in-class. iMemories does not outsource or off-shore work like most of the other service providers.

Arizona was strategically chosen because of its climate and technological superiority. The lack of treacherous storms like hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornado activity combined with the advanced technological infrastructure and talent pool in Arizona have made this an ideal location for our headquarters.

99% of the time, iMemories customers do not know how much footage is on each videotape. The only way you would know, is if you marked the duration on the tape when you finished shooting it. That would be very uncommon. However, with iMemories, this is not a problem. At iMemories, when you view your home videos online, you know immediately how much video footage is on each tape – as it displays in the online interface. Additionally, when custom creating your final set of DVDs, the iMemories DVD Creator will only allow you to place up to 2 hours (or 120 minutes) of home video footage on each DVD.

Approximately two hours of videotape will fit onto a single DVD.

Yes. For an additional fee of $24.99 iMemories will repair your broken videotape.

Yes. Once your film reels and videotapes have become digitally mastered, both are considered digital video. You are welcome to mix and match any video footage onto a single DVD. Just drag and drop the different clips to a DVD Creator project.

Two-hour videotapes (example: VHS and 8mm) can contain a few additional minutes of footage. iMemories accounts for that, and will be able to include this additional footage onto a single DVD.

iMemories charges $19.99 per videotape, up to 2 hours. If your tape duration is longer than 2 hours, then, add $19.99 per every additional 2 hours.

iMemories will convert the entire videotape to a digital format, and make it available online. When you configure your order, you can choose which parts actually end up on DVD. So, yes, you control exactly what footage is archived to DVD.

Different regions of the world utilize different video formats, NTSC is the standard format in North America. PAL is the standard format of Europe and some of Asia. SECAM is widely used in Africa and Asia. You cannot, for instance, play a PAL tape in a NTSC player.

Yes. iMemories converts PAL and SECAM to NTSC for an additional fee. We can convert PAL and SECAM to NTSC, or NTSC to either PAL or SECAM.

Most home movie film reels have markings on the side of the (metal) reel that indicate the length. You will traditionally see 200 feet, 300 feet, or 400 feet for 8mm or Super 8. Only with 16mm film will you see 800 feet or higher. Traditionally, the smallest reels (plastic), the ones that measure 3 inches in diameter, are 50-foot reels.

The running time for 8mm film, Super8 film is approximately:

• 3" reel (50 feet) 2-3 minutes
• 4" reel (100 feet) 5-6 minutes
• 5" reel (200 feet) 12-14 minutes
• 6" reel (300 feet) 19-22 minutes
• 7" reel (400 feet) 26-29 minutes

Our Film Calculator is also a helpful tool for understanding duration with film reels.

Approximately 1,600 feet of 8mm or Super 8 film (18 frames per second), or 4,300 feet of 16mm film (24 frames per second) – in other words, two hours of digital video – will fit onto a single DVD. iMemories provides our customers with an online Film Calculator that helps you to understand the overall duration of your home movie film. Simply plug in the numbers and the film calculator reveals all of the relevant information. Note: When using the iMemories Film Calculator, if you do not understand the film speed, just use the default variables: 8mm and Super 8 film = 18 frames per second, and 16mm film = 24 frames per second. Customers that understand the exact frame rate for the film can enter in alternative film speeds if desired.

Yes. Your film is fully inspected and cleaned thoroughly (by hand) by our film-cleaning specialists. This process is included free along with our iMemories Preserve service.

Yes. Old home movie film is often broken when it arrives. In addition, when iMemories is cleaning aged film, sometimes a breakage will occur. iMemories will professionally “splice” (or repair) your broken film – without any loss of the home movie footage. iMemories does not charge extra for this premium service. It is part of the iMemories Preserve service.

iMemories employs a highly proprietary process with state-of-the-art equipment to get the highest quality digital frame-by-frame film capture available today. This advanced film frame capture process is the basis for the crystal clear image quality that is experienced on all iMemories Archives.

Yes. iMemories enhances home movie film the exact same way that a Hollywood studio would enhance an old feature film. iMemories leverages both advanced digital technology as well as a team of highly trained film editors and colorists, to color correct, enhance lighting and contrast, and to touch up your home movie films. When the iMemories digital mastering process is complete, your film footage will look its very best.

iMemories transfers film with sound. We support both optical sound (16mm film) and magnetic sound (both 16mm and Super 8 film). The film is run through two specific processes to optimize the result. One process captures the film footage, frame-by-frame, to create the visual part of the digital video. The other process captures the audio track. Once the video and audio have been optimized, the iMemories Video Editing Team then synchronizes the audio and video together. This is the exact state-of-the-art process used for commercial motion picture films.

Yes. Once your film reels and videotapes have become digitally mastered, both are considered digital video. You are welcome to mix and match any video footage on a single DVD. Just drag and drop the different clips to a DVD Creator project to combine them.

For silent film, a frequent request is to add a music soundtrack. iMemories can add a full music soundtrack to your silent film footage for a fee of $99.99 per DVD, plus either 1) customer provides commercial music, or 2) customer purchases commercial music ($1 per song).

iMemories scans your photo prints, negatives and/or slides into a high-resolution digital .JPG format – the same digital image format used in today’s modern digital cameras. Each image is scanned with professional grade equipment, and then, is photo edited with PhotoShop by seasoned photo editors. Full photo touch up, color correction and image optimization is included with each scan.

No. iMemories can handle any size order.

With the professional grade technology used at iMemories, you get the same crystal clear quality from scanning photo prints, negatives or slides. What’s more important is the shot itself, and the condition of the photo print, negative or slide. If the originals are in good shape, the result at iMemories will be high quality.

iMemories will provide all of the converted (digital) photos in JPG format onto a CD-ROM, which holds approximately 600MB (Megabytes) of data. If you have a DVD data drive on your computer, you are welcome to special request you photos be mastered onto DVD disc media – which has larger storage capacity 4,700MB (Megabytes) or 4.7GB (Gigabytes) of data. Approximately 120 digital photo images will fit on a Photo CD and 940 photo images will fit on a Photo DVD data disc. Additionally, if you order an iMemories Photo Slideshow, approximately 1,600 digital photo images will fit into the DVD (each photo being displayed for 5 seconds).

With this option, iMemories scans your images in high resolution, and provides in a digital photo file format called a .JPG file – the same type of file format captured with modern digital cameras. The digital images are archived onto an archive gold CD-ROM. The images are ready to be shared electronically – e-mailed, displayed on blogs, used for photo slideshows, etc. The images can also be used to create photo prints, photo books and other types of photo gifts (photo calendars, t-shirts, etc.).

iMemories organizes your files and folders to reflect the way your physical media is organized, i.e., by sequence of photos, roll of negatives, carousel of slides, etc. For example, if you have an album of photos called “Summer Vacation 1966,” iMemories will place all those images in a folder called “Summer Vacation 1966.”

Traditionally, you Photo CD will not play in your DVD player, unless you have a DVD player with special JPEG-compatible slideshow features. For most customers who want to watch or view their photos on their DVD player connected to their television, they have iMemories create an iMemories Photo Slideshow on DVD.

An iMemories Photo Slideshow on DVD is a collection of your photos that are organized into a DVD video slideshow which can be watched on your television or DVD-equipped computer. Each image displays for a designated time period (example: 5 seconds) and then transitions to another image until the slideshow is complete. The DVD can be controlled just like a movie (i.e., pause, fast-forward, etc.). You can also add a music soundtrack. Slideshows can include up to 1,600 picture images.

Any combination of photos, slides, and negatives can be used along with any other types of paper media that can be digitized with our scanners. This would include items such as announcements, newspaper articles, brochures, flyers, ticket stubs, cards and letters, licenses or just about anything you can imagine.

An iMemories Photo Slideshow on DVD is only $.25 per photo, negative or slide image. This does not include the baseline $.59 scanning charge required to convert the original photo, negative or slide image to a digital format.

Yes. Simply mail us your digital photo files on a CD-ROM. When you send in your digital photo files, you will not be required to pay the baseline scanning fee of $.59 per image.

iMemories can add a full commercial music soundtrack to your Photo Slideshow on DVD. You can decide what music tracks to include, and in what sequence the songs play. For copyright reasons, you must either send us your original retail CDs in the original retail packaging or purchase your music tracks from a commercial online music download Website (which iMemories can help you with).

Traditionally, customers will want each photo image to display for 5 seconds. With most songs lasting 3 minutes, about 40 images will play during the average song duration.

Yes. iMemories will provide the final Photo Slideshow to you in your iMemories Online account. After you have reviewed it online, and we have your approval, iMemories will custom publish the final Photo Slideshow on DVD and ship it to you along with your original media.

When you ship iMemories your photos, negatives or slides, we scan them and then place them you’re your private account. Each “batch” of photos, negatives or slides you provided will be organized into online Picture Albums. You can view each digital picture image online or the entire Picture Album by dragging and dropping each picture image or the entire Picture Album into the media viewer in the iMemories Studio. You can also create a Photo CD by dragging and dropping picture images or Picture Albums into the project sequencer in iMemories Studio.

If you have different batches or groups of images, they are scanned (in batch) and staged online in separate Picture Albums, organized how we received them. You are welcome to re-label and re-organize each Picture Album in your online iMemories Studio.

Not all DVDs discs are the same. In fact, the differences in quality can swing the lifespan of a DVD from less than 5 years to more than 100 years. iMemories uses the finest quality DVD media available – archive gold media. These archive gold DVD discs are stress-tested by the manufacturer under a variety of environmental conditions to ensure durability and longevity. iMemories archive gold DVDs are currently rated with a lifespan of 125 years, meaning they should last for generations. All other service providers will only offer “silver” DVD disc media, which depending on quality level, are designed to last between 5-25 years – which is similar to the lifespan of analog video tape (example: VHS and 8mm).

At this point in time, it is extremely unusual for a modern DVD player to be incompatible with an iMemories DVD-R disc. Current estimates show that more than 99% of modern DVD players will successfully play an iMemories DVD-R disc. You are welcome to review your DVD player manual to ensure it supports DVD-R disc media.

Yes, there is a slight difference. Hollywood movies are “pressed” DVD media and manufactured in large batches (of thousands at a time). Hollywood DVD videos use a slightly different DVD specification. iMemories Archive DVDs are DVD-R discs or “burned” DVDs ( also known as published DVDs – as iMemories is only publishing a few personalized DVDs per customer). Modern, name brand DVD players will play both “pressed” and “burned” DVDs. The next generation of DVD players supporting high definition playback (Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD) also play iMemories Archive DVDs.

You are welcome to order additional copies of your DVDs anytime before you complete your order. This can be done after you have configured your order online. As you are checking out, you can indicate how many additional copies of each DVD you would like. The iMemories Shopping Cart will display the details.

If you want the flexibility to order copies of DVDs at any time, iMemories Online Premium Membership is the way to go. For a 1-year subscription, you can order a DVD of your home videos whenever you choose, and for any occasion. If you elect not to purchase the premium membership subscription option, iMemories will delete all of your digital files at the conclusion of your transfer order. If you decide you want additional copies in the future, your alternative would be to send the DVDs back to iMemories.

Simple. A substandard product that will not last. Local and Internet A/V shops are traditionally run by amateurs, most of which conduct business out of their residence or small office (over 98% of all digital transfer shops). Because of their low end nature, they use consumer-grade equipment, poor quality DVD media, and they skip valuable quality steps throughout the process – sometimes to save money, sometimes because they don’t have the skill to know any better. Industry best practices or rarely or never followed.

On top of it all, local and Internet A/V shops require you to do all of the upfront work yourself (perfectly labeling and organizing all reels/tapes in your home movie collection) – as they do not have an online video experience to make it easy for their customers to label and organize their DVDs after the conversion process.

And, last but not least, your priceless home videos are always at risk of being permanently damaged or lost with unprofessional or amateur firms.

Most people have a mix of film reels and videotapes – with even a further mix of different formats. 8mm, Super8 and/or 16mm home movie film. And, Betamax, VHS, 8mm and/or MiniDV videotape. Because of this, a do-it-yourself project would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

In addition, even if you had some of the older equipment for playback, the equipment to convert it to a digital format would be considered low end, consumer grade – thus the quality of the resulting DVD would be poor – as the professional grade equipment necessary to correctly digitize home videos costs millions of dollars.

Last but not least, who has the time and the patience to go through the process? Even if you had all of the necessary equipment and skill, an average “single family” project would take between 50-100 hours of your time to complete.

Trust your home movie archive project to iMemories, and get it completed right the first time, and have fun getting it completed without wasting any time.

No. While the iMemories online video is considered ultra high quality online video, it is not the crystal clear full quality DVD video you will experience with your final iMemories Archives. The online video that you watch from iMemories Online is optimized for delivery over the Web – through a broadband connection to the Internet via a browser. Therefore, it is considered a lower resolution version of your home videos. iMemories maintains the high fidelity (DVD quality) version of your digital video at our state-of-the-art data center. It is that digital master that we use to create your final set of iMemories Archive DVDs.

An iMemories Movie is a custom produced video/photo montage with music soundtrack. At iMemories, this is our most premium product. It’s a full cinematic music video experience showcasing your personal moments as the main event. It’s where memory lane meets movie magic.

iMemories will interview you to understand what you are looking for. We have a series of questions that we ask that aid in the process. Additionally, if you prefer, you are welcome to select and sequence the exact photos and video clips that will be used in the iMemories Movie. But, that is not required.

Based on the interview iMemories conducts with you, the iMemories Music Supervision Team will review your project and then, will custom configure an appropriate set of music tracks for you to pick from – with each selection considered a great choice. You then listen to music samples online, and give iMemories your final selections. Or, if you would prefer, iMemories can select the final music tracks for you.

Yes. The iMemories Professional Editing Team will use industry-best technology and their creative talent to give your custom iMemories Movie that high end touch and execution.

You are the “movie director” for your project. So, iMemories just needs some direction from you. We will ask you some personal preference questions that will be simple to answer. Then, we will ask you to help guide us to the proper home videos and photos to use. Traditionally, this is not very time consuming. Then, we will ask you to review the final piece. The whole process is designed to be fast, fun and easy for you.

Yes. Your iMemories Movie will arrive professionally packaged. This includes a personalized DVD case and DVD disk that will include your selected photos. The DVD case will be presented inside of our signature iMemories Gift Box.

When the recipient provides his or her home videos and/or photos to iMemories, they include the gift card with their package. iMemories will debit the card for the amount of the order. If there is a balance due, the gift card will retain the balance for use at another time, and be returned to the recipient. iMemories Gift Cards are valid for one (1) year from issuance.

When you give the gift of an iMemories Online Experience Gift Card, you're doing the front-end work and letting that special someone have the fun and thrill of the online watching, sharing and creating experience. This is different from a traditional gift card – where the recipient provides the gift card as in-store currency, but, they are supporting the project from start to finish.

With the iMemories Online Experience Gift Card, a family member or friend drops off the home videos and/or photos ahead of time, on behalf of the recipient. iMemories then converts the home movie and photo media to a digital format and makes it available online for watching, sharing, organizing, and labeling. When the iMemories Online Experience Gift Card is presented, the recipient can logon and immediately watch and share their home videos and/or photos online. In addition, they get to have the fun of creating their final set of iMemories Archives on DVD – just the way they want it.

It's a great gift for people who want to be involved in the process, yet you still want to give them a surprise. This encompasses the perfection of “doing-it-myself” with the fun of being a “movie director.” Only iMemories provides this one-of-a-kind online video experience that lets the person have fun and get what they want with little effort upfront.

This special gift card is ideal for do-it-yourself spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, and other family members. You, as the gift giver, are getting the home movie and/or photo transfer process jumpstarted, and letting the recipient have the fun online video experience. They can customize their order online, and get it completed by iMemories exactly the way they want. iMemories will either FedEx them their final set of DVDs or they are welcome to pick them up at our state-of-the-art studio in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Included is a branded iMemories Online Experience Gift Card with the unique log in information for online access to their private account, packaged nicely in a signature iMemories Gift Box. Recipients can use the card immediately, which enables them to access the pre-paid order the gift giver has purchased.