FAQ

We are a husband and wife team that formed this business to offer a service to individuals and professional video production companies.
Dion Edwards – Director : I have been working in the television and industrial audio visual market since 1989. Having worked for a family owned and operated AV Company that sold and serviced brands such as Sony, Panasonic and AVID, I have been exposed to every facet of this industry. I have repaired, installed, designed and commissioned systems for consumer and professional users. I have also been heavily involved in video production, camera operation and editing systems. I have formal qualifications in electronics and over twenty years experience in television and allied industries.
Tanya Edwards – Director : I am the admin side of the business and also perform non technical aspects of the business, ie tape conversions, dubbing and duplication. I have been involved with this for the last six years.
DVD Conversions LTD is a registered NZ company and is registered for GST. We are registered with APRA / AMCOS.

A basic transfer from tape to DVD is not rocket science. We would suggest you start with a good DVD recorder available from most retailers and buy a VCR off Trade Me. A bit of basic electronic knowledge will enable you to do this. In fact, many of our competitors do just that. They are offering you what you could do at home for a few dollars less than we charge. When you compare prices, please ask our competitors, what measures they take to improve the video and sound quality?
HOWEVER …
If you want it done properly and you want the best for your video’s then send it to us. It’s not just a DVD recorder and a VCR that makes the transfer possible. In between the two are a host of sophisticated electronic devices and calibration equipment that ensure the video and audio signals are restored and conditioned for best results. The type of equipment used in our facility can be found in most television studio’s or dubbing houses. We have invested heavily in top of the line equipment to ensure you get the best possible product.

Yes they are, along with the DVD’s and any other material.

Yes you can, we are more than happy for you to view short sections of the tapes on our systems, all we ask is that you set up an appointment with us.

Our focus is on quality rather than quantity, by squeezing 4 hours of footage onto a single DVD, image quality has to be sacrificed. Tech talk: The data file has to be highly compressed and the data rate has to be reduced, as a result, the image quality is compromised. The optimum trade off between quality and price is at the two hour mark, where image degradation is minimal. Think of it as one of those emailed video clips that has done the rounds, do you want your videos to look like that? Especially If you are going to be viewing the material on a HD display.
Old saying: “Long after the happiness of a good price comes the bitterness of poor quality!”

We prefer to think of it as included! We include all the extras in the price, also remember that 15% of our price goes to the NZ Government as GST is included in our prices.

Our standard rate includes the following:
The actual conversion to DVD on equipment that is intended and designed to perform this function, recalibration of video and audio signals, removal of bad sections of the recording or “blue screens”, a Verbatim DVD-R disc, a DVD box, a pre printed sleeve and a standard colour print on the DVD.
We are happy to print artwork of your choice on the DVD, just send us the pictures or wording before we start your job. We print directly onto the disc surface, we do not use self adhesive labels as these can cause the disc to go “off balance” and introduce read errors.

Courier or postage fees. Advanced editing or special effects.

Yes we will. It does depend on how many tapes you have. But we are open to negotiation.

Yes we will, chapters every 10 minutes and titles where there is more than 1 tape per DVD.

Yes they can, each will be represented in a menu structure. The price is on a per DVD basis, not per tape.

We will have to split it over two DVD’s, so we will find an appropriate place to split the video, eg, between the ceremony and the reception, or wherever there is a convenient place to split the video without losing the feel or breaking the continuity.

We split the footage into two hour segments at sections in the recording that won’t affect the continuity of the footage. Example, we will split the video at 1h50 just between Timmy’s 5th birthday party and Tammy’s dance recital. Tammy’s Dance recital will go on the second DVD until we get to the 2 hour mark, we then repeat the process for the rest of the tapes.

Not entirely true, we have sophisticated video processing equipment which does improve the overall quality of the recording. Tech Talk: Our equipment allows us to recalibrate the video signal to 1Vpp and restore the black level, sync level and chroma levels, as well as being able to make adjustments for white balance, contrast and sharpness. Ultimately, the end result is dependant on the condition of the original video recording, even a 10% improvement on a bad recording is still an improvement.

True, they don’t, but if they are looked after properly, they can last a lot longer than a video tape. It is best practice to make backup copies of any digital media as there are a number of factors that can influence the expected life of optical media. We only use Verbatim media as this has proved to be by far the most reliable optical media we have used. It does cost a bit more, but wouldn’t you rather have your treasured material on a branded and reliable format.

In most instances we can, we remove the damaged sections and splice the tape using proper cassette splicing films and alignment jigs. We also stock spare cassette casings for most formats. As for mouldy tapes, we can fix them too. We do not charge to fix your tapes if we are converting them (another included item). If you just want us to fix them, there is a minimum charge or $10 per tape, excluding casings and subject to inspection.

It depends on our work load at the time. This is a real time process, so a 3 hour video will take at least 3 hours to run, we also need time to prepare the DVD and do the printing. We do run multiple systems so we can run multiple tapes simultaneously. We do our best to have the work done in less than a week, but this is obviously dependant on how many tapes you have and who’s ahead of you in the queue.
If it is urgent, please let us know and we will do our utmost to accommodate you.

Yes, every reasonable precaution has been taken to ensure that your tapes and material is safe. We have a maintenance plan for all our machinery and our offices are secured with intruder detection, 24 hour video surveillance and smoke detection. That being said, we cannot assume responsibility for damage or loss caused by situations out of our control.

We do monitor the footage as the machines are running to ensure that the process is going correctly, we do not sit and watch every minute of every tape. There are only two people who have access to the footage and they are the owners and directors of DVD Conversions LTD. When we have visitors to our facility, all monitors are turned off so your footage is not visible.

No, none of our conversion machines are connected to our Local Area Network. All our conversion systems are stand alone. All editing computers have firewall protection and up to date antivirus software installed. Rest assured your videos will not find their way to You Tube from here.

We keep the footage on our hard drives for a short period, just in case you want any changes or additional copies. We delete old files as necessary to free up space for new footage. If we have not heard back from you within 10 days we assume that all is well and delete your footage. If requested, we will delete the footage immediately.

It depends entirely on your computer system and what software you have. Our DVD’s are supplied in *.VOB format so the first thing to check is whether or not your edit system supports import of VOB files. If not then we can convert your tapes to a format that most edit systems will import. The rule of thumb is, QuickTime files for MAC systems and AVI files for PC systems. Where possible we will assist in any way we can. Tech Talk: For best results, the contents of the DVD should be copied to a local drive on your computer and imported into the edit system from there. The reason for this is that the optical drives usually suffer from insufficient read speed. Another tip, have a dedicated drive for all your video files and don’t rely on the system drive for the operating system, editing application and data. Set up a “D” drive on your system or use a high speed external device.

The consumer guarantees act ensures you are protected. We are not in this business to make a fast buck. Our motto is to provide the best possible service at an affordable price. We strive to ensure you are entirely happy with the end result. We want you to be entirely satisfied with our service and we want you to tell your friends. The majority of our work is obtained via word of mouth and we want that to continue.

This is a difficult one. DVD’s are subject to scratches and even the smallest scratch near the info or boot sectors of the DVD can render it useless. We offer a 1 year return to base warranty on the work we have done. If your DVD stops working within a year of the transfer due to malfunction of the DVD, we will re run the conversion (provided you have the original tapes). We will not honour this warranty if there is damage to the DVD in any way. This includes the top surface of the DVD. Any scratch on the printed surface can damage the coating and cause a disc to malfunction. When you write on the disc, use a felt tip pen, preferably one that is intended for this purpose. These can be obtained from your local stationary store. Some solvent based markers can also damage the surface, so be careful. If you want anything printed on the disc, please let us know, it’s one of those included items we referred to. It is very important that the DVD is cared for and stored correctly.

To date we have not had a comeback where the DVD did not work at all. In the two cases we had both turned out to be menu settings on the DVD player rather than an incompatible disc. The only areas that have caused some problems are laptop / notebook pc’s. This is usually sorted out by downloading a free media player like VLC Player. Not all laptops (especially the older ones) have the correct codec’s installed for DVD playback. All DVD’s mastered by us are tested on “off the shelf” DVD players. Most, if not all late model DVD players are compatible with DVD-R formats and will play PAL and NTSC DVD’s. We consider a DVD to be a working DVD if it plays in any of our playback devices.

It depends on a few factors. The DVD you get from us will be a PAL DVD. There are no regional settings recorded onto the disc, so there should be no problems with that. Most modern systems can play all TV standards. We can burn NTSC discs for NTSC countries, see our facebook page for a link to a TV standards website.

It depends. We will not copy movies that can be obtained commercially via online or retail stores. NZ copyright law (as we understand it) does not allow for “fair use” like the American system does. We will not jeopardise our business for the sake of a $35 Disney classic.
If you own the copyright or you produced the video yourself or you featured in the video clip or you can obtain permission from the relevant copyright holder in writing, we will then copy the material for you. We have a standard indemnity agreement which needs completing prior to us commencing the work.
This does not apply to family videos or home video.
In the case of music recordings on LP or tape, we are authorised to “format shift”. This is covered by our APRA License.
We will not copy any material that is objectionable, insights violence or racial intolerance, is morally questionable or graphically pornographic. We will use our discretion to determine what we will or will not copy in these instances.

Drop off, courier or we will collect (for a fee).
You are welcome to drop in and see what we do and leave your tapes with us. Just let us know what time you would like to call.
If you choose to use a courier we strongly suggest you use a trackable service with a signature required. That way you know it got to us and one of us signed for the delivery. We will collect when we are in your area (Auckland and immediate surrounds only) we will advise a fee depending on your location.

Pick up, courier or we will drop off (for a fee).
You are welcome to collect from us, just let us know when suits you.
We can courier the goods to you, we use NZ Courier Post, Signature Required as standard. The courier charge is added to your final invoice. You are welcome to arrange your own courier if you would prefer.

We accept the following forms of payment: Cash or Direct Debit. We will also accept cheques (personal or business). But please do not be offended if we do not release your goods until the cheque has cleared. Unfortunately this has become standard business practice the world over. “In God we trust, everyone else pays cash”
In the case of a direct debit, we will email a invoice to you for payment, we will release the goods with proof of payment.