Central Virginia Video

10/02/2022

FULL RANGE OF THUMB/FLASH DRIVES

These are all of our flash drives. They range from the smallest of 4 GB USB 2.0 up to 256 GB USB 3.0. They range in prices from $7-$50 depending on the size. The smallest one will hold 2 to 4 hours and the largest one will hold up to 300 hours.

You can also cherry pick what videos you would want to give to the family. These can be purchased with your videos loaded to family members that are not local and can be dropped in the mail for an additional $5 per address. All we need is the address, quantity, and video list.

09/24/2022

Unless you have your own carousels, slide boxes will be provided with the conversion for a small fee ($10). Loaner carousels are available to place the slides in the order of scanning. They will then be put into a permanent archival box as shown. As an alternative the slide boxes can be used initially to load up the slides for conversion. These boxes hold up to 200 slides. The scanning process is broken up into 4 sets of 50 slides each. So if a boxes only half full only half the price will be charged.

01/28/2022

MONOGRAMMED FLASH DRIVES

Along with adding your videos onto your flash drives. We can also monogram the outside with a laser engraver. You can even do duel-sided. The rough pricing is 4/16 GB are $1 setup and $1 for each side per flash drive. 32/64/128 are $2 setup and $1 for each side per flash drive. Rush orders (

01/08/2022

NEW FLASH/THUMB DRIVES

We have new flash/thumb drives. All drives larger than 16 GB are 3.1. Only 16 GB and below are 2.0. Also notice one side is USB-A(original standard). The other end is the USB-C(new standard). So all the drives from 32, 64, and 128 GB in size have this dual sided connector. Only the largest one(256 GB) still is the old standard.

11/30/2021

New 35mm Slide Pricing

Just in time for the holidays we have revamped our slide pricing. We now offer a special discount for Kodak style carousels. This is because they are less labor-intensive.

This is the perfect thing to place a USB thumb/flash drive at Christmas under the tree. Here's I current slide pricing.

Reasonable, NO SHIPPING, Image Stabilization, and Volume Discounts. Check out: https://centralvirginiavideo.com/blog

07/18/2021

Now when receiving your MDisc set you are automatically given a DVD case with all the MDiscs enclosed. I still have the option of using the smaller sleeves which would fit inside of a safety deposit box but this is also an option. These DVD cases are approximately 7" x 5.5". This is the type of thing you pass on to your grandkids. One set normally would take 4 to 12 disks. This is equivalent to 100 to 300 GB of video. Somewhere in the 30 to 150 videos depending on the complexity of the videos.

06/03/2021

MDISC VERSUS CLOUD

At 1st glance the MDisc looks like a normal Blu-ray disc. What makes it different? The "M" in the MDisc stands for Millennium. The company that makes it decided to make a disk that will last 1000 years. Instead of an organic dye the Mdisc is made of ceramic that the laser alters to store the videos. Normal Blu-ray/DVDs only the last 15 to 20 years before the material deteriorates. So knowing this information, any data stored on this will last forever.

Now the question is which is better storing your videos on the cloud or on a MDisc? Clearly with enough Internet, the cloud in today's technology is wonderful. Even with the cost coming down almost daily the price is getting more and more affordable. I can store all 68 hours of my videos on Microsoft OneDrive for less than $20 a year with my other Microsoft purchases.

However, that's in the United States. What if the cloud is not available at the same Internet speed in other countries. There are companies that are producing the Internet globally but you must have a service to use it. Can we be certain that our great grandchildren will have access to this cloud. That does not bother me near much as if the regulations change where they would outlaw our videos from 20 years ago.

Real example, I had 48 video clips of my extended family that I put on one long 5 hour video. On July 4, 1998 I had one video clip that was recording fireworks in my hometown and they advertise to turn to a particular radio station to follow the fireworks. That radio station during the fireworks played the song "Stairway to Heaven" after placing that video on YouTube for the family to see it wasn't long before they muted the entire video of all 48 clips. So the cloud is subject to the regulations at the time.

Another real-life example, somebody put information on the cloud space and the company went bankrupt. Another company came out and bought them out and sent out messages to all the original people saying your cloud data is held hostage until it you pay us so much money if you want your data back.

Given all the problems I've mentioned above I clearly think and MDisc is worth the storage. Yes I would also use the cloud but that would just not be my only storage. I would use the MDisc and if somebody wants to pay for the cloud let them put it up there also.

04/29/2021

FLASH DRIVE PROBLEMS

We here at Central Virginia Video provide all your videos on a single flash drive as part of our service if you have more than 5 videos. However, we have discovered some problems with some of the larger flash drives with certain computers. The smallest flash drives do not have this problem this would include the 16 and 32GB size. This is only with the 64/128/256 GB sizes.

In simple terms from a non-engineering standpoints all flash drives will now be formatted FAT32 from now on to solve the following problems.

The smaller flash drives are pre-formatted for FAT32 format. Windows in their wisdom decided on the 64GB and above sizes to not allow you to format drives of FAT32 format. Your choices are either exFAT or NTFS. Even though the flash drives can be formatted for FAT32 Windows does not allow Windows 10 to format it that way. Windows is trying to push their NTFS file system. Mac computers do not allow you to write to an NTFS file system because of the controversy between Apple and Windows from years ago. So therefore all manufacturers of flash drives above 32GB in size are preformatted for exFAT format.

Some computers like Google Chrome Books do not support exFAT and will not work with that flash drive. Some TVs and been known not to work with NTFS. So the only real solution is to force flash drives to be formatted FAT32 which Windows 10 will not format it. It will work with it fine it just will not format it. However, Windows 7 will format it with the right software.

I have just verified that the Walmart DVD/Blu-ray/flash drive player will play a video from a flash drive formatted FAT32, 256GB in size will play videos fine. I believe this player is $78 at Walmart in stock.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-Streaming-Blu-ray-Disc-Player-with-Built-in-Wi-Fi-BDP-S3700/49987014

02/24/2021

WHAT THE COMPETITION PROVIDES

A customer has brought me over 40 tapes to convert to flash drives and DVDs. She had 6 tapes converted by another competitor and they provided 6 DVDs one for each video. Had she taken these 40 tapes to this other competitor they would've created 40 DVDs. This would be a nightmare to try to pass on your legacy through the generations. Also, notice in the picture that these are normal DVDs that only last 15 to 20 years before decaying.

That's why it's so important to put all your videos on a permanent MDisc. People say why do that just put it on the cloud. Are we absolutely 100% certain that the cloud will be available in 50 years? What kind of regulations could exist in 50 years that may prevent our videos from being preserved. Are we sure that the cloud will exist in other countries if your grandkids are not in the United States? The MDisc is the only permanent solution.

02/09/2021

NEW SLIDE SCANNER

My previous method of scanning slides(taking pictures with a professional SLR of the slides) as it worked very well functionally it was rather slow. This scanner scans 50 slides at once up to 10,000 dpi. It would do both JPEG 8 bits and TIFF 16 bits. The normal scanning procedure of 5000 dpi is still much more than the maximum resolution of a professional SLR.

11/02/2020

M-Disc is a DVD or Blu-ray DVD that uses an inorganic ceramic layer rather than ink based dyes of normal DVDs and is much more permanent with has a life expectancy of 1000 years. All our videos are put on one or several of these MDisc as permanent records.

Camcorders/Cameras of today do not use tape, they use SD cards. So rather than needing a conversion, they just need archival of this SD card to 25GB Blu-ray or 4.77GB DVD M-disc. A USB thumb/Flash Drive is automatically provided or added to our current thumb/Flash drives.

Some camcorders may need some conversion or image stabilization before archival. Some video formats may not be available 50 years from now. So conversion may be necessary to put them in a format that will be readable 50 years in the future. These formats(JPG, MP4, MOV, PNG, TIFF) should be readable 50 years from now.

We have a Procedure that would convert lesser known formats to MP4 plus add image stabilization if needed.

09/18/2020

WHAT CENTRAL VIRGINIA VIDEO PROVIDES

Most video copy/transfer businesses provide a DVD for each video. Then they give you a DVD case as shown in the picture the same size as Hollywood videos. Some locations will allow you to download it but where would you store it permanently for generations to come? Also normal DVDs only last about 15 years because of the burning process. Burn DVDs use a laser to alter the ink-based dyes in the material and those decay. You can buy special archival versions of these and they may last up to 50 years. But do you know if the company that transferred your videos use that material?

We do not do that. We provide you with a single flash drive (16–256 GB) that will contain all of your video memorys. Flash drives also only have a life of approximately 15 years(Computer Media). So a permanent Blu-ray MDisc set is provided for the generations to come. They are designed to last centuries. They use a very special ceramic material that never decays. So your videos are stored in stone. You can use these this to reload your flash drive for another 15 years.

Walmart sells a $70 DVD/Blu-ray/flash drive player that will play everything we provide.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-Streaming-Blu-ray-Disc-Player-with-Built-in-Wi-Fi-BDP-S3700/49987014

The picture below shows a single 128 GB flash drive that can hold 112 DVD videos. I have had one customer store 240 hours of videos on a 256 Gig Flash Drive in 220 videos. The convenience of having all your videos on a single flash drive is wonderful. Then the Blu-ray MDisc set can be stored in the closet or in a safe. Since these will never decay they can be passed on to future generations. When we pass we don't want our children to go through box piles of videos that they will throw away that were actually them as children. But several permanent flash drives and permanent Blu-ray DVDs will be saved.

Reasonable, NO SHIPPING, Image Stabilization, and Volume Discounts. Check out: https://centralvirginiavideo.com/blog