When you bring your home videos to me for transfer, we will need to decide what to transfer your video to. Our options are DVD, Blu-Ray, thumb drive, or and external drive. You might be wandering; What's the difference?
It really depends on what you are wanting to do with your final product but it also depends on your technology level and what you are comfortable with and the equipment you have.
Are you wanting to just be able to view and enjoy your home videos and keep them safe from further age wear and damage?
Are you wanting to import your videos into your computer to edit and make your own DVDs or upload to a website?
Are you getting these transferred for a family member and what is their technology level and what equipment do they have to view these videos?
Here's the pros and cons, as I see them, to help you decide.
DVDs
Pros:
.DVDs are very common and play on most computers and DVD players.
Most people are familiar with how to use DVDs.
It's easy to use DVDs to import the video into your computer for editing or uploading.
Cons:
DVDs bought and rented from the store are commercial/manufactured DVDs and are made differently than the burned DVDs that are made from a home computer/burner. There is a very small percentage of DVD players that will not play -R, +R, WR DVDs which are burned on a home computer/burner. There's a large percentage of Blu-ray/DVD players that will not play these home burned DVDs. To check if your DVD or Blu-ray/DVD player will play home burned DVDs you can check under "Specifications" or "Overview" of the product offered on the website on which you are purchasing your players. Specifically look for "Playable Formats" or "Video Playback". If it does not say it plays: DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, chances are the DVDs won't play. When purchasing a DVD or Blu-ray/DVD player make sure that it will play ALL types of CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays.
DVDs are NOT indestructable. They can be scratched, damaged, and possibly degrade over time!
These days, most computers do not come with a CD/DVD drive so you may need to purchase an external disc drive to import or watch DVD videos on a computer.
Blu-Rays
Pros:
It is more common that a Blu-ray/DVD player will play home burned Blu-rays but just as with DVDs, check the manufactured website or the website of which you are purchasing your player to make sure.
Blu-rays can hold up to 25GB of video versus the 4.7GB of DVDs!
Cons:
Blu-rays are less common and more expensive
Your computer probably will not have a Blu-ray drive that will be able to play or allow you to import the video into your computer.
Blu-rays can be scratched, damaged and possibly degrade with age and use.
THUMB DRIVES
Pros:
Thumb drives are very small and can hold up to 1TB of video!
You can use your thumb drive as a way to store your video but also to view your videos.
You can connect your thumb drive to any computer by usb and play your videos with a media player.
Your thumb drive can also be connected to a "Smart TV" by usb, go to "Source" or "Input" on your remote and your videos will pop up on TV screen, then choose the video and play. Super easy, super convenient! You will watch your videos more often because of the ease of use.
You can also easily connect by usb to your computer and drag and drop your videos to import to computer for uploading to websites, cloud storage and for editing within your computer.
Cons: One of the Pros is also a Con:( Thumb drives are so small they can easily be lost or damaged. I never recommend storing your home video on one of these long term. They are great for getting your home video from one place to another or giving copies of videos to friends or relatives but never for long term storage.
In the Pros, I mentioned they can hold up to 1TB of video but I tried a 1TB thumb drive and it was not successful when trying to load videos. Maybe that will change over time but for now, I'm not impressed:/
With thumb drives, the formatting of them takes up some of the storage so on a 16GB thumb drive you will only get about 14.8GB of usable storage. Just something to keep in mind!
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES
Pros:
These bad boys are the way to go! These can hold many hours of HD video! These can also hold your photos, music and documents. I considered myself a little obsessed when it came to hours of home video footage of the kids growing up and I use a 2TB for all my home video, photos, music and documents and it's plenty of space.
These external hard drives are much more study than a small plastic thumb drive and bigger (average size is 3 1/2" x 4 1/2") so harder to misplace.
These are affordable now! You can get a 1TB for around $50 or less when on sale, and 2TB for around $70 or less.
You can use your external hard drive as a way to store your video, photos, music and documents but also to view your videos.
You can connect your external hard drive to any computer by usb and play your videos with a media player.
Your external hard drive can also be connected to a "Smart TV" by usb, go to "Source" or "Input" on your remote and your videos will pop up on TV screen and let you choose the video and play. Super easy, super convenient! You will watch your videos more often because of the ease of use.
You can also easily connect by usb to your computer and drag and drop your videos to import to computer for uploading to websites, cloud storage and for editing within your computer.
Cons:
There's not many but the obvious! These are NOT indestructible and can damaged or lost, although they are more sturdy than the small plastic thumb drives. I think the best way to go is buy two external hard drives and keep one as a back up. I can purchase these for you or you can bring me your external drive to have your videos loaded on it.