The Photo Finishers makes old film, slides, tapes new again
The Photo Finishers, voted Readers Choice Best Hot Springs Photo Video Store, makes old tapes, film and slides new again.
“The relentless march of time and the constant changing of technology can make media, the format that we store the memories of our lives difficult to enjoy, relive or even play or view. Photo and video formats and recording devices are constantly changing. Hot Springs’ locally owned and operated The Photo Finishers is equipped to transfer your video and photos to formats that are permanent and easy to enjoy,” a news release said.
“There are a lot of film capture and video formats that have been widely used over the years. For example, before digital cameras there was medium format, 110, 126, 135, APS and Disk film, just to name a few, and the same for video which started with 8, super 8 and 16 mm films, then moved to tapes, the most popular consumer formats being Beta, VHS, 8 mm, and MiniDV. We can migrate any of these analog formats to digital such as disks or flash media, make prints, duplicates whatever works best for our individual client,” Waco Hill, store owner, said in the release.
Legacy formats will eventually become unviewable. In July 2016, five years ago, the last VHS VCRs were manufactured by Funai Electric in Japan, and the last Beta machine rolled off the assembly line in 2002. Now is the time to have family movies on videotape transferred to DVD.
“There will come a time when consumers will no longer be able to play their videos,” Hill says, “and we continue to ensure that we can work with any video format our customers have, so their memories won’t be lost. In fact, we just did some Betamax transfers to DVD last week for clients in Little Rock. We even have very substantial volume discounts, so it’s a very affordable service with all the work done right in-store; no sending out.”
Videotape has a limited life span, depending a great deal on the temperature and humidity condition that the tape has been exposed to over the course of its life. Under ideal conditions, a magnetic polyester polyurethane tape such as VHS could expect a usable life of up to 30 years, but if the tape (especially poor quality tape) is stored in an environment with higher humidity and temperature, or played in un-maintenanced equipment they can degrade quickly and have an expected life of five years or less. Home movie video will be lost and unplayable if not converted to a newer format like DVD.
“All your hard work, time and effort put into creating the video will be wasted and your memories lost forever,” the release said.
“In addition to tape transfers, we are now offering services to take your video from your phones and tablets and put it on media (DVD, flash drives, Blu-ray, etc.) that make it safe, secure and easy to enjoy. We see people all the time whose phone crashes or is damaged and they lose all the photos and videos they had created. It’s heartbreaking to us. Don’t let it happen to you.”
“We have been doing film and tape to video and video slideshows and memorials for 25 years, and we have continued to invest in new technology and training to provide services for all the new digital video file formats as well as the capability to migrate all the memories you have stored on film and analog media to modern storage devices such as DVD, CD, Blu-ray or drives. My goal with this business is, and has always been, to offer the most complete variety and highest quality of photography and video services available anywhere under one roof, and I think we have been very successful with that,” Hill said.
“It’s really hard for me to think of any photo or video imaging service — traditional or digital — that we have not provided over the years. It seems like we do it all. If we don’t, we will find a way to make it happen for you; we always have.”
In addition to photo and video, The Photo Finishers transfers analog audio tape like cassettes, records or reel to reel to CD format and MP3. Audio and video restoration and repair services are available if needed to improve the originals. All printing and video transfer service is done locally inside The Photo Finishers Albert Pike location, so there are no worries about sending them through the mail “to some far-off place you’ve never seen or met the people doing the work.”
“For everyone’s health and safety we continue requiring masks to be worn and we are cleaning the countertops and door handles throughout the day,” says Hill, “and if our clients don’t want to get out at all, I am offering to pick up and deliver, or ship projects, which we have done for clients as far away as Great Britain. We’ve always done these sorts of things for our clients that don’t have a way to get out, it’s really nothing new, it’s just more folks just need it now, and we are happy to help.”
For more information about The Photo Finishers Services call 501-6244029 or visit www.thephotofinishers. com or The Photo Finishers Facebook page.