Frequently Asked Questions

A: If your reels are marked with a date or description of scenes and it is in the time period that you know you have a desire to see ie. Kids growing up, holiday celebration, at the beach etc., include these entire reels in your order. If they are not marked in any way, no postage date, no description etc., you can hold the film up to the light or a light box and look for the first few frames to find a closeup of someone or place that will identify a year or event that will help you decide if you want to include it and when it took place.

A: You must mark the reels in numerical order to the best of your ability, however, frequently they are either mis-marked or spliced together incorrectly. Do not worry! Vintage Family Tree Video will put the reels onto DVD according to the numerical order you indicate when you send your reels to us. When we get the unedited version onto DVD, we will send you your film and the unedited DVD version back to you, along with a detailed description of the scenes in the sequences as they appear on DVD. You can watch your copies and make any notes you want onto the description sheet we sent to you. In this way you can provide us with the editing details you want included in your final highlight DVD production, ie. "move this scene before that one... edit out the scenery but keep in the segment with the little girl in the red sweater... edit out the ex-husband wearing the blue shirt in this scene..." etc. What makes your highlight DVD a good one is that we take the time to edit your raw footage into a watchable length which includes only the scenes that you've indicated to us that you want and none of the scenes that have no value to you any more.

A: The music is just as important as the film footage or pictures. We provide you with a list of many different styles of music and categorized by the typical content of family activities ie., good times, kids growing up, weddings, reminiscing, vacations, holidays etc. If you have specific songs that you want that are not on the list, send us a CD or audio tape with the selections on it and the descriptions of the scenes where you want it played. These will be returned to you with your completed order. If you want a specific song and you don't have it and it is not on the list we provide, we will search for it and buy it for you if at all possible. You will be charged the actual cost of the CD or tape and it will be returned to you with your completed order. The bottom line is that the music selection "makes the DVD special". Unless we have to purchase something for you specifically, the music is included in your total cost.

A: Absolutely... and we strongly recommend it! The inclusion of photos, slides, video tape highlights or memorabilia of any kind adds greatly to the overall quality of the DVD. It gives it an A & E Documentary production style to your DVD and enables you to supplement your family history DVD with pictures you have from before the time frame of your home movies and after the home movie time frame ends. Including photos/slides from the years during the home movies also enables you to include important pictures of events that were not covered in the home movies. Vintage Family Tree Video utilizes hundreds of special effects like zooms, fades, flying in and out, to transition from picture to picture and from pictures to movie film footage and back again. Photos are on DVD for 6 to 8 seconds at a time which keeps the flow of the DVD moving and interesting. Titles can be added which are especially important for older photos.

• 3" diameter - 50' Reel
• 4" diameter - 100' Reel
• 5" diameter - 200' Reel
• 6" diameter - 300' Reel
• 7" diameter - 400' Reel

A: If you have film in little 3" diameter boxes or plastic reels, these are 50' reels. If you have some reels in this format that indicate 25’ double sided reels, these are a total of 50' reels that were processed in two 25’ strips per box. This can be confusing but they are 50' reels in total.

If you have reels that are larger than 50’', these are usually in either metal containers or large plastic reels. Consult the size chart below for total footage. If you have partial reels, you can check on the spoke of these large reels and there is usually little slash marks on the spokes that indicate the footage.

You are charged for the total amount of film footage transferred, in other words, the total amount of raw film footage indicated by your total number of boxes and/or containers. The amount of running time per total amount of film footage is as follows for the different formats of film. 8mm, Super8mm, and 16mm can be combined onto one dvd, however, please try to number the different formats consecutively so that processing change over charges are avoided.

8mm = 50' = 3 minutes
Super8mm = 50' = 3 -1/2 minutes
16mm = 50' = 1- 1/2 minutes
8mm = 1600' = 2 hours
Super 8mm = 2000' = 2 hours
16mm = 3200' = 2 hours

A: Typically, clients will have boxes and bags full of video tapes that are of varying lengths and varying content. Some are marked and some are not. The most popular service VFTV provides is the consolidation and limited editing of all formats of video tapes. We edit out the blurry, blank, damaged sections, the times when the camera was left on recording the grass, the sky, the floor etc., the footage where TV shows were recorded over home taping, and the on and on repetitive footage when nothing is really going on. Editing is done with both the audio and the visual in mind so that by consolidating the tapes chronologically and editing out the junk described above, a number of tapes can be consolidated onto a dvd with a total of 2:15:00 of running time capacity. The dvd’s are organized and watchable and any specific editing instructions you have are followed. The balance between valued and overkill is adhered to.

A: We will send you a short demo DVD, free of charge, so that you can visualize what your material will look like and see for yourself the value you receive from doing business with Vintage Family Tree Video. We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that if there is anything you don't like about your finished production, we'll change it to your specifications, free of charge.