Great services! Friendly people! I would absolutely recommend them to my friends.
I had a whole bunch of European standard PAL VHS and Hi8 tapes left from the my early travel days to Europe and Asia, which I was not able to watch due to limitations of my TV video playback devices at home. Turns out USA video standards are different from what is used elsewhere in the World. I guess NTSC is not compatible with PAL secam or something like that. I was eyeing the on-line conversion services, but after reading reviews, where people have complained tapes are "getting lost in the mail" or crushed during the shipping, or when their precious tapes (anniversaries or weddings) were accidently wiped out I decided I would rather deal with a local business, here, nearby my home, where I know my rights and I have someone local responsible to trust.
So, one bright sunny day I was on my way to the neighborhood grocery store, passing by and noticed a storefront that I never paid any attention to before. What drew my attention is the name: Kino. That's what Europeans used to call their Video (cinema if you will) in early days. I walked in and had a chat with a lovely very knowledgeable woman (I think her name was somewhat Persian or Georgian, like Tamara or Lamarah). She explained what services they provided and it clicked in me, THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR such a long time!!!
I came back later that day and brought two of my less-of-the-importance tapes to try these guys out and asked her how much would it cost to convert from this awkward standard to our common DVD, that I could playback on any TV or DVD player. She said it depends on the length of the footage and she is unable to say precisely how much it would cost, since even I couldn't remember how much was on the tapes, but she guesstimated at $15 for a deposit, she also mentioned that the video professional who is going to perform the conversion is most likely to contact me in a few days to go over all the details and tell me how much it'd cost me, and it's not too late to back out if I think it's too much. I figured, what's the risk in it for me? The entire process shouldn't take over a week and if I'd wanted it sooner I could've gotten the express-service for 24 or 48 hours at some additional cost. I thought that I could wait this time.
Indeed, next day, a young (per his voice) gentleman called me, we quickly went over few details. He offered to professionally print the description of content right on the surface of the disk as simple text for FREE(!!!), also asked if I would like anything more sophisticated on it and I chose to have a few pictures printed on a DVD, so I could instantly know what's on it from a single glance at it. He told me that I had few different things on the tape: from Italy, France and Switzerland and asked if I'd want it to have them in separate movies. He even asked me if I wanted to have a menu, just like a commercially made DVD's are, for as little as $5! Oh, my, how could I resist?! We settled on the design and few days later I've got a phone call from the store that my order is ready for a pick up.
I went over and picked the DVDs up the next day. Amazing, these guys are open until 8pm! I paid slightly higher than $15 dollars since I had a bit more footage on my tapes and I've added the menu.
I could not be happier when later that evening I was able to share moments of my student traveling with my husband! The quality of the job was astonishing, so many years have passed!!! Next Monday I brought them all our wedding and anniversary tapes for VHS to DVD conversion. Although this time it was again a 7day service order they've converted my recordings within 3-4 days, and I didn't have to pay extra for this. Then I figured it'd be really good present to my parents for their anniversary, to my sister's 30th birthday, and coming up Valentine's Day for my dear husband. And what a blessing to see yourself and your dear ones young again on a big digital TV!
I'm yet to convert all my Christmas recordings. So, I'll be coming back again and again. Thank you so much for bringing our memories back to life again! read more
