I used to make this offer each year in November/December on the old alien site before they lost their minds and I deleted everything and left. Over the past decade, I’ve digitized 100+ hours of video, and close to 1000 photos.
I can digitize the following formats:
- 35mm negative / slides / négatif / diapositif
- 8mm film (8mm & Super 8) (without audio)
- VHS-C “compact” video tape (not full size VHS)
- MiniDV video (not HD… yet)
- 8mm Videocassette (“Sony” 8mm / Hi8 / Digital 8)
- Audio cassettes
Reasonable limits apply - one of:
- Up to 80 frames of 35mm negatives / slides (2-3 “rolls”)
- Up to 5 reels 8mm film
- Up to 5 VHS-C videotapes
- Up to 5 MiniDV cassettes
- Up to 5 8mm videocassettes
… or some reasonable mix of each.
Output is in JPEG or MPEG4 format. For MiniDV/Digital8, I can provide the original .dv files, but they’re gigantic - 20+GB/hr. 35mm slides/negatives are usually returned in plastic sheets suitable for storage in a binder.
Turnaround time is usually 72 hours.
Process: Pack up your media in a box, include your ID on Lemmy on a piece of paper, a USB stick for storage (about 1GB per hour of video). Drop off at my office in St. Henri, and pick it up in the same place a few days later.
People often ask why I do this. Freeing cherished memories from old media is a hobby of mine, I don’t do this for a living, but I’ve accumulated a lot of equipment over the last 10 years of doing this.
EDIT: Formatting.
That’s great! People who take OP up in this offer need to keep in mind that they’re exchanging one problem for another one. Instead of running out of playback devices they’ll have to contend with storage impermanence.
Storage media, especially HDDs, aren’t forever. Storage blocks can become unreadable, disks die and bitrot is real. For long-term storage you’ll want a redundant setup like RAID and maybe a filesystem that can detect bitrot.
I actually work in digital archival work, and this is true… Do NOT trust ANY technogy, you have to have a PROCESS for keeping data safe… Multiple copies, in different places, preferably using different technologies. RAID won’t save you if your house burns down!
Obviously, lol. But yea, magnetic and electronic media don’t cut it for long term storage. Optical media like BluRay is better, if the storage conditions are right, as I recall. Intel’s project silica also looks promising.
Optical isn’t better, unless it’s magneto-optical which induces a phase change in the material itself - but even those drives had issues where static discharge would blast the media if the drive itself wasn’t properly grounded… Bit rot is real.