Today, we live in a world where we want every movie and TV show instantly available at our fingertips and on every electronic device in our collection. Video conversion is a very time-consuming process depending on your computer specifications. That’s why we offer video conversion services to make your life happier. Shelves that are full of movies, videotapes, and Dvd’s now seem overly cumbersome. There is more than one way to convert your Dvds to a format that is compatible with a range of devices. To simplify things, we offer video conversion services to help guide you through this process. Glendale Video Solutions can convert your Dvds to any popular format you want so that you can stream your videos to your smart tv or any modern device that you own or just to archive your digital files. We can also convert your Mini Dvds that have been finalized, however from time to time we get some discs that have not been finalized, no worries, we are able to finalize most discs so that they can be digitized. Please feel free to give us a call if you have any questions.
Why You May Want To Convert Your DVD’s
Services We Offer
Common Video File Formats
.AVI (Audio Video Interlaced)
AVI format is a long-time standard developed by Microsoft and has been around as long as digital video has. AVI files (particularly when uncompressed) tend to be HUGE, way too big for the internet or uploading to someone. AVI is more for the beginning of a video project using it as something to edit off of, not the end. In that sense, it is not really a sharing format. They’ll slide into just about any video editing program and the quality is still high enough to be a master clip.
AVI is windows-based and is virtually universal. The problem is, not all AVIs are created equally and you can still run into compatibility issues due to different codecs on the videos. The important thing to know is that whatever streams inside the container (AVI) is not necessarily the same from one AVI video to the next because the codecs used for compression can vary from file to file. This is because AVI is what’s known as a “container format”, which basically means it contains multiple streams of different type data, including a control track and separate video and audio streams.
.FLV (Flash Video Format)
Flash video (FLV) is the single most common sharing format on the web today. You’ll see the .FLV file extension on videos encoded by Adobe Flash software to play within the Adobe Flash Player. Virtually everyone (99%) has the adobe player installed in their browser and so this has fast become the most common online video viewing platform. Almost all the video sharing sites stream video in flash. You can upload formats other than flash, and those sites will convert it into flash for streaming to the end user. Notable users of the Flash Video format include YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace, and many others.
Many television news operations are also now using Flash Video on their websites as a way to keep viewers up to date at all times. Most of those sites accept uploads in a handful of formats like QuickTime, mpeg4, or wmv, and then they convert it to flash or MP4 before actually putting it out on the net for viewing.
In addition to the nearly universal flash video player, FLV is popular because it gives one of the smallest file sizes after compression yet it retains fairly good quality. This means that the videos load quickly on the internet, and won’t spend a lot of time using up your bandwidth. If you self-host your own videos, you should convert them to flash for greatest compatibility with the highest percentage of Internet viewers.
Although FLV’s are the most common format found on the web today, the standard is moving towards the use of using MP4 H.264 files within flash players as it is compatible with both online and mobile (iPhone), not to mention some HTML5 browser support (Safari, Chrome).
.MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group)
MPEG was developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group. This international group was established in 1988 to develop standards for digital audio and video formats. However, they’re just one of many groups looking to standardize and develop new technologies for digital video.
.MPEG-4 (.MP4)
MPEG-4 is another great sharing format for the internet. It’s a small file size, but looks fairly clean in comparison with other video codecs of the same file size. It’s the video format employed by a growing number of camcorders and cameras and it is highly recommended this day and age.
In fact, YouTube actually recommends that users upload using MP4 format. YouTube accepts multiple formats and then converts them all to .flv or .mp4 in their back-end for distribution.
As mentioned earlier, more and more online video publishers are moving to MP4 (with H.264 as the video compression codec) as the standard internet sharing format with use within both Flash players as well as HTML5 and most mobile devices. This is the format that we recommend for online delivery of your media.
.WMV (Windows Media Video)
A .WMV file indicates a windows media video file. Windows Media Video is used for both streaming and downloading content via the Internet. Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, an application bundled with Windows operating systems, is built for WMV files. WMV files are of a pretty small file size, actually one of the smallest. As a result of the low file sizes, the videos are compressed so much they start to lose their quality in a hurry. In fact, I’d say the resolution is pretty crummy in comparison to modern codecs. But a tiny file size can be a real advantage in some situations. If you get an email with an actual video attached instead of just a link to a video, it is probably a wmv file. They are the only ones small enough to attach to an email.
.MOV
.MOV is the file extension used to identify an Apple Quicktime Movie. .MOV is an extremely common sharing format, especially among Mac users. It is considered one of the best looking file formats. While MOV files do look great, the files sizes are extremely big. Due to the fact that QuickTime hasn’t been a Mac-only program for quite some time, QuickTime versions and players exist on almost all PCs. The vast majority of the videos we personally upload to the web are QuickTime format, followed by MPEG4.
Benefits and Reasons for using GVS
GVS is a family run business that first opened it’s doors over 10 years ago. We are based in the US and over the years, we have served clients from across all 50 US states. Our head office is in Glendale Arizona, and we are the industry leaders in analog video digitization. Our technicians are polite, friendly, and highly trained and experienced. They cherish rescuing and digitizing memories locked in analog video cassettes.
If you have videos in VHS, Betamax, VHS-C, S-VHS, Mini DV, DV Cam or Hi-8mm format, let GVS digitize them for you. Simply give us a call to place an order with us and we will be happy to rescue your favorite videos.