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General
FAQ
What type of
equipment is used by The Photo Archival Company™?
What is your copyright policy?
Is my material confidential?
How do I ship my material to you?
How long does it typically take you to process my order?
Where are my submitted material processed?
Is my material secure while stored in your media vault?
Do I pay sales tax?
Do you return my originals?
DVD/Video
FAQ
What format are my DVDs returned in and can they be edited on my computer?
Can you combine more than one videotape onto a DVD?
Can you repair broken videotapes?
Do you support NTSC, PAL and/or
SECAM conversions?
Photo/Slide/Negative FAQ
What does DPI or resolution mean?
Can you place my scanned pictures in
folders on disc?
What format are my digitized photos returned in?
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What type of equipment is used by
The Photo Archival Company™? |
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The Photo Archival Company has several
franchised locations operating throughout the United States
according to our exacting standards. Each franchise is
operated using a uniform set of approximately 150 distinct
items. Our proprietary combination of
hardware, software and workflow is essentially our
confidential formula for success.
Each day, people call us to ask how we do what
we do. Just as franchised pizza chains and cola
companies won't share their secret formula, neither can we.
Thanks for respecting the investment made by existing
franchises by not asking for our intellectual property.
Franchises are available in some areas, you may check for
availability at Persist Media.
The Photo Archival Company is a registered trademark
licensed to Persist Media, Inc.
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Where are my submitted material processed? |
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We process
all of your material in-house. We realize this is your
legacy. Once received and inventoried, your material
is sealed in its own container. We have technicians
whose sole job function is to image and transfer your original
material. They are only permitted to work on one
container at a time. Once imaged, your materials are
sealed back up and stowed away for restoration and
production services to complete your project. Your
originals remain sealed until your shipment is returned at
the end of our process. Every single audio,
video and photo we have received has made it home
safely.
Our lab technicians are specially trained, wear lab clothing
and most-importantly use specialized gloves so as not to
contaminate your originals. Cleanliness and
organization spells efficiency. We are a smoke free environment. |
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What is
copyrighted material? What is your copyright policy? |
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In general,
a copyright is a form of protection provided to creators of
original material. Copyright owners dictate how their
material is reproduced. Copyright owners can grant
permission, in written form, that allow their work to be
duplicated, mimicked or reproduced. The Photo Archival
Company abides by copyright laws.
Videos and photographs are just
a few examples of original material that may be
copyrighted. If we receive material that is
copyrighted, we will not process the copyrighted
items. We will send them back to you along with the
portions of your order that we can legally fulfill.
Without exception, The Photo Archival Company will never
process anything that is thought to be copyrighted.
As an individual, you may not authorize anyone else to
duplicate or transfer a copyrighted item for you. You
may own the videotape proper, but that does not mean you own
the copyright to it.
The industry and the regulators have made their position
clear. The following text is printed on most videotape
shells and sometimes appears in the movie itself with
current US and European notices.
Please note, we can duplicate
copyrighted materials if you are the copyright owner and
sign a release, which is subject to our validation. Please consult the original author
of the material if there is any doubt or seek a professional
consultation. Take comfort, we are as vigilant
about protecting your privacy as we are about abiding by
copyright laws. |
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How do I
ship my material to you? |
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You should
carefully package your materials in a sturdy, crushproof box
filled with material to protect it during shipment, such as
bubble wrap or shipping peanuts. Actual photos,
negatives and the like can be sealed in locking plastic
storage bags.
We encourage you to ship your
materials through leading shipping companies such as FedEx or
UPS. These companies offer a shipping number to track your shipment's
progress.
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Do You Return My Originals (Original
Materials)? |
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Simply, yes. By
default, we send your original material and digital material
back in the same shipment. We also offer a Dual-Ship
option. With Dual-Ship, we return your new digital
material first. When you have received that shipment
and give us a green light, we will mail all of your original
material back.
We have never had a single video, film feel, slide or
photograph lost or damaged in the inbound shipments to us or
return shipments from us, but we do recommend you obtain a
tracking number for anything mailed to us. This is
automatically given with private carriers, but you will need
to opt-in on a tracking number with the USPS. |
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What does
DPI or resolution mean? |
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DPI stands for
"dots per inch". 600 DPI means there are 600 small
points of detail in one linear inch of scanned material.
Higher DPI means higher detail, more scan processing time
and a larger resulting digital file. DPI plays no part
in enhancing existing images. It only helps preserve
details that remain.
A 5x7 picture scanned at 600 DPI would create an image that
is approximately 3000 pixels by 4200 pixels in size, or
approximately 12 megapixels.
We scan photos at 600 DPI. Photos larger than
8x10 are scanned at 300 DPI and slides and negatives are
scanned at 3600 DPI with 48-bit color depth. |
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Can you place my scanned pictures in
named folders on disc? |
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Absolutely. If you want your scanned pictures in
specific folders,
simply group your pictures together (i.e. sandwich-type bag, envelope or box) and give its container
a short name. We will name the disc folder accordingly.
In the example photo below, we would create a folder named
1999 and another one titled 1995, etc.
We will name the photos within each folder with a sequential
number. |
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What format are my digitized photos returned in? |
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Your
pictures are returned in JPEG (.jpg) format. This
format allows for more pictures to be stored per CD or DVD
and are sufficient enough for archival and printed
needs. |
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What format are my DVDs returned in and can they be edited on my
computer? |
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Want more details,
click here.
We return
your DVDs in the industry standard MPEG-2 format.
Just like any Hollywood movie, our DVDs may be played in your home DVD
player (think DVD player for your television).
Unlike Hollywood, we don't put copy protection on our DVDs; therefore, you may edit them with your
home computer, or even make copies for yourself.
When it comes to editing our DVDs using your computer,
you will need a video editing program. Why? For
the same reason you need Microsoft Excel to open a spreadsheet
file, a Web browser program to access this website or a
checkbook program to balance your checkbook on your
computer.
You need video editing software that supports MPEG-2 video
files natively, otherwise you'll have to convert them to
something your software recognizes before you can start
editing, such as AVI, MPEG-4 or QuickTime. If you wish
to edit our DVD movies with your Apple (i.e. iMovie), you
may need to purchase a
MPEG-2
Decoder from Apple.
We don't recommend specific video editing software programs.
Some of them are basic and some are complex. We don't want to make the wrong
recommendation for your needs.
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Can you
combine more than one videotape onto a DVD? |
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Yes.
Please number your tapes 1-N and provide a written
instruction sheet for us to follow. For example,
tell us to combine tapes 1,4,5 onto a single DVD in that
order.
We strongly recommend that you keep
the content of each produced DVD to two hours or less. |
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Can you
repair broken videotapes? |
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Yes.
We charge a fee of $20 per videotape to repair it.
We can repair cracked cases, splice tape together or
reattach your tape to the spindle if it came loose when it
was last rewound.
The $20 fee includes one splicing if the tape has been cut.
We do not repair tapes that have been damaged beyond a
cracked case or
detached as we just described. There are likely
companies that will repair flood damaged, mildewed, molded,
tapes but we don't have the equipment to do that in-house. |
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Do
you support NTSC, PAL and/or SECAM conversions? |
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We
support all NTSC formats listed on our order
page. We can convert your PAL formats to DVD as
long as they are S-VHS, VHS, VHS-C, Video8 or Hi8. We
do not currently support digital PAL formats (MiniDV,
Digital8 or HDV). We do not currently support SECAM
tapes of any style.
We write to Region 1 compliant
DVD players in NTSC format only.
Conversion fees are $3 per original,
in addition to the transfer fee. |
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How long
does it typically take you to process my order? |
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We typically
can turnaround your order within a couple business weeks.
If you require RUSH
service, please let us know and we'll make every effort to
meet your request. |
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Is my
material confidential? |
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Of
course. Simply stated, your personal information and
materials are never disclosed to another party without your
expressed written prior consent. Our reputation and
your privacy go hand-in-hand. We have performed
transfers for LA film companies, major universities, the US
military, celebrities and many more.
Please do not submit
copyrighted material as prior described in our copyright
policy section. |
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Is my
material secure while stored in your media vault? |
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Our archival
service stores your processed materials in a fire-safe vault
environment. Apart from
quarterly inventory audits, your actual archived media is
not touched unless you have a need to recover it. |
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Do I pay
sales tax? |
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We have
locations in Georgia, Nebraska and Utah. We will add appropriate
sales tax if you live in one of these states. |
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If
you don't see your answer here, please write our FAQ mailbox.
All inquiries will be addressed.
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