www.video99.co.uk
all kinds of video tapes copied to DVD
This page provides news and updates relating to the video99.co.uk audio and video transfer
business. Regular customers can come back here to see what is new.
It's a kind of mini-blog.
22nd July 2010. The best laid plans.... Our hopes for
a move to larger premises came to nothing (apart from a great deal of
expense) when the seller changed his mind just as we were ready to exchange
contracts. So we are staying right here for the timebeing!
July 2010. We expect to be unavailable for a few days around
12th - 16th July, while we start moving equipment out ready for the move to
larger premises. Email will still be answered but we may not be able
to tackle much transfer work during this time. Please bear with us and
this time, it will all be worth it in the end.
June 2010. Well you know what it's like buying a new place,
it takes forever, but things are moving along. We still have full
capability here but we're asking a few large commercial contract jobs to
wait until later in the year where that is convenient for the
customers.
New in, an extra CD recorder system helps with larger audio transfer
jobs. On the other hand, with a move imminent, we're selling off lots
of spare equipment on eBay, see user name video99_co_uk
there.
May 2010. Watch this space.... We may be able to
announce a move to larger studios shortly...
April 2010. A little set-back. You hard working
engineer Colin has hurt his back. But there's no delay for customers'
work which carries on as usual. Some very obscure formats may be just
a little harder due to the need to move heavy equipment around.
March 2010. Now in: DVCPRO (DVCPRO25) support, this format
is not easy to find transfer services for. That will complete our portfolio of video
cassette formats; we now cover essentially every known format in the
consumer and semi-pro arenas, as well as the popular studio formats.
So we can say now with some pride: video99.co.uk covers the widest range
of video cassette formats in the UK. Well you have to be a bit of
a video enthusiast to get excited about that.
February 2010. Well we had a very stressful time when one of
our most important computers (server) died horribly. Fortunately we
were able to get a replacement motherboard in and working the next day and
so no work was delayed. We also increased our storage capacity
to over 4.5TB. Furthermore the extra processing power allows us to
turn around edited and Deluxe Menu DVDs even quicker, so perhaps it was a
blessing in disguise.
January 2010. Happy New Year to all of my customers, new and
old. There's plenty of work on already but I'm still turning short
jobs around next day, even the snow and ice doesn't slow us down.
HDV (High Definition) miniDV tape capability for
1080i, the most popular High Def resolution is now available. This will be added to the
miniDV
page shortly.
December 2009. It's been very, very busy over the last few
weeks with the build-up to Christmas. We're now taking on work for
delivery in the New Year and have plenty lined up. Thanks to all my
customers over the last year, especially those who have even sent us
Christmas cards, it's nice to be appreciated.
November 2009. We have gained two new pieces of equipment
this month. Firstly we have a Sony J3 Digital Betacam player, so we
can now run Digital
Betacam, BetacamSX and MPEG IMX studio tapes at last. This was a
major investment, being much and away the most expensive piece of kit we
have ever had to buy, but already it has been busy running tapes for several
customers. Next we have now imported and serviced a CVC
format machine suitable for NTSC tapes from USA. Video99 is probably
the only transfer business in the world to support both PAL and NTSC
recordings in the very rare CVC format. We can now also run Betacam
tapes of the NTSC system for both small and large tape sizes, as well as PAL
of course. In other words, we really do have one of the widest range
of video cassette formats available in the UK. Other formats planned
are at least the most popular HDV High-Def formats on DV tape, and perhaps
the more popular DVCPRO tape sizes, though users of both of these formats
usually are aware that it's usually easier to play the tape on the original
recorder than try to find someone to run them later.
October 2009. The postal strikes are not causing us
any particular problem. I always recommend people send their tapes by
Special Delivery, and this service is working as normal throughout the
disruption. I've had three customers tell me that their disks did not
arrive promptly, so I sent out replacements (free of charge) and in both
cases those replacements arrived next day. So far, then, so good.
From December 2009 we plan to support all Digital Betacam and Betacam SX
formats as a result of the purchase of a very expensive Sony J3 player.
September 2009. We now have an extra two High Band / SP capable Umatic
machines available as well as the original one we've had for some
time. This gives us more backup and
capacity for this important format. Many transfer businesses say they
run Umatic but will let you down with High Band or SP recordings. We
also cover SECAM and NTSC Umatic recordings, and perhaps uniquely in the UK
can handle NTSC SP (High Band) tapes too. We love Umatic!
We are delighted to announce
that we now have capability for the obscure professional format called MII
(or M2, M11) and this will be added to the web order
form shortly. There may not be any other UK businesses offering
this format.
We have increased capacity by adding a fourth Digital Timebase Corrector
/ Standards Converter to our systems. These are expensive units, and
most small transfer businesses don't have them.
28th June 2009. Ours is a family run business, and we're
pleased to announce that the latest addition to the McCormick household: A
healthy little boy called Scott arrived at 06:02 on 28.06.09, weight 8lb 1oz. Mother and
baby doing fine.
June 2009. Expected at the end of 2009, we plan to offer the
obsolete MII (M2) professional video cassette format, we have a Panasonic
AU-65H machine coming in for this, but it will need servicing. Very
rare.
May 2009. We have a new CD and DVD printer in for improved
print quality and to make custom DVD prints more quickly. A spare
BVW-22P has been purchased which is particularly helpful for low band Betacam
tapes.
April 2009. We have a Sony SL-T30 multistandard Betamax
machine now in which helps particularly with foreign NTSC and Secam Betamax
recordings.
March 2009. We now have a third Digital Timebase Corrector
available to help throughput for larger jobs of many formats. Also now
available for use is our third BetacamSP
player and the fourth EVS9000E Hi8
edit deck.
Regarding the purchase in of hard disks for my customers: I'm sorry
to say that the discount shipping of hard disks for my customers from SVPis no longer available due to a change in their shipping systems.
They are still however very competitive and you can order a drive from them
for any DV-AVI hard disk transfer I may do for you, and have the drive
shipped directly to me. Other suppliers such as Ebuyer, DABS and
Amazon can often also accept an alternative shipping address in the same
way.
February 2009. We now have a brand new Apple Mac Mini. This
will help us to format hard disks for Apple customers who have previously
had to put up with the NTFS file format, which Macs can read but not write
to.
More S-VHS decks with built-in Digital Timebase Correctors have been
purchased, and these will be on-line soon and available to help with
"wobbly" VHS and S-VHS recordings.
January 2009. We now have a backup working CVC
deck. Not many transfer businesses have one of these ultra-rare
machines, let alone two!
Betacam
/ BetacamSP NTSC capability now available and tested, for the small video cassette
size. PAL tapes can be accepted in both small and large cassettes.
A new Digital Timebase Corrector has been installed which significantly
increases our capacity for SVHS/VHS
and Betamax.
December 2008. We had a very busy Christmas workload, but
completed all work in time for Christmas that was promised, and quite a few
which were not promised too. We still have plenty of work on, going
into the New Year.
New equipment in to be serviced includes: Another Sony EVS9000E edit deck
which when serviced will take to four the number of these highly capable
units available to us. Also we have a V2000 deck capable of Long Play
(XP) recordings, which hopefully will be ready next year. Also
in to be serviced is a third BetacamSP
player. We now also have an NTSC compatible DVD recorder in, which
makes it much easier to create DVDs for viewing in USA/Canada. Another
DAT player has been purchased for more capacity on this audio
format.
The web site has a new look, much
trimmed down for a cleaner appearance, but all the information is still
available. Next year (?) it will get a redesign with tabs for easy
navigation.
November 2008. The Christmas rush has most certainly
started, and we're very busy. We aim to guarantee that all work
received by 12th December will be completed in time for Christmas.
Work received later than that, we'll do what we can. Turnaround for
smaller jobs is still just a few days to a week.
We are proud to announce that now have the exquisitely rare Technicolor/Funai
CVC format
online at last. There may only be a dozen or so of these machines left
working in Europe.
The main video99 web page has
undergone a major overhaul to reduce its size and complexity. If you
find any bugs, please let me know.
October 2008. You would think that video99 never gets caught
out with a tape we can't run. But occasionally even we get a tricky
one! In this case, we discovered that Digital8 equipment, whilst
capable of playing both PAL and NTSC analogue Video8 and Hi8 tapes, is not
capable of playing NTSC Long Play recordings. Not to be outdone
though, we bought in suitable equipment just for a single job (so
effectively made a loss on the transfer), but still were able to complete
the work promptly for the customer. He was delighted, and so then were
we. Also this month we have bought in more minidisc equipment so we
can carry out pure digital transfers of LP2 and LP4 minidiscs.
Sept 2008. We are now back from our well earned break, and
clearing a backlog of tasks over the next week or so. Thanks to my
customers for their patience over the last couple of weeks.
Aug 2008. Now with more BetacamSP equipment available for
even faster turnarounds on this format.
July 2008. The ComputerActive
magazine for this month carried an item on video transfers, and included a
mention of the video99.co.uk web site under the Betamax format. Of
course, we do all formats, but the recommendation was nice and we are
getting in lots of Beta tapes lately as a result!
June 2008. We can now handle Betamax
tapes recorded on very early NTSC
equipment which ran at the BetaI or Beta 1 speed (1 hour on an L500 tape),
as well as the more common BetaII and BetaIII speeds. We are probably
the only UK transfer outfit with NTSC Beta1 capability, and even in NTSC
countries it will be pretty rare. We are using a professional Sony
SLO-320 machine which is in excellent condition.
We presently have on loan a CVC format machine, but may have to return
this to its rightful owner (depending on being able to source spares for a
second machine). So now is a good time to ask about CVC format tapes
from the Technicolor portables of the early 1980's.
Your video transfer engineer Colin is recovering
well from a Wisdom Tooth extraction and has now caught up with all
transfers so there is no significant backlog. Short jobs are often
turned around same day.
We now can cover both the mini cassette and microcassette dictation /
answering machine formats. as well of course as regular Compact Cassette and
other audio
formats.
May 2008. We try to have backup equipment for all important formats so
that you will not be let down in the unlikely event that equipment requires
service. We are pleased to say that we now have duplicate video
equipment online for Digital8
and micromv
formats, which joins the duplicates we already have available for VHS, SVHS,
Betamax, Betacam, Umatic, V2000, Video8, Hi8 and miniDV.
We also now have in a DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) machine for audio
transfers, but require a cassette to fully test this facility. If you
have a DCC tape, let us know.
April 2008. We now have an arrangement set up with the
excellent supplier of computer equipment and consumables, www.svp.co.uk
who will provide hard drives directly to us for customers. You can
select any Freecom external hard disk from their web site, and have it sent
straight to video99 for your video transfers, at just 99p shipping.
This is ideal for customers who require tapes put onto hard disk in DV-AVI
format but don't have a suitable drive already. Just contact
us for details on the necessary shipping address and coupon code with
SVP.
March 2008. For a long time we have been able to handle
video tapes from any part of the world. The only exception has been
the studio BetacamSP format, where only PAL equipment has been available
since very little NTSC equipment was ever sold in the UK. However we
now have in a BetacamSP portable player BVW35 in NTSC format. This
takes the smaller Betacam tapes only, the ones of the same physical size as
domestic Betamax. However we do not yet have an NTSC BetacamSP tape to
fully test this equipment. If you have a small BetacamSP tape with an
NTSC recording on it, we will do a free transfer for you (provided the
equipment proves to be fully working of course)
February 2008. After a short break due to difficulty in
obtaining spares, the N1500 (Philips VCR) format is now back and fully
available. We have also obtained sufficient spare parts that we hope
to be able to continue with this format indefinitely.
January 2008. We are pleased to add the exquisitely rare
Grundig SVR format to our portfolio, Grundig model SVR4004. This is useful because recordings
on VCR tapes could be any of the N1500, N1700 or SVR formats, and you can't
tell which until the tape is played. We believe that video99 is the
only transfer company in the world capable of handling all three of these
variants. See the VCR
format transfer page.
I can be contacted here if you have
any questions or comments.
We have a new
and easy order page, just select what kind of tapes you have and supply your
details.
www.video99.co.uk
all kinds of video tapes copied to DVD
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