VHS and camcorder recordings have a copy-time price
convertfilm quotes £7.50 per hour of copy time plus £5.00 for the DVD for conversion from VHS, MiniDV, DVCam, Video8, Hi8, Digital 8 and NTSC VHS. That is a duration-based price, rather than a published flat charge per cassette. A tape's advertised recording capacity is not necessarily the amount of footage on it; include any known running times when asking for an estimate.
Ask how partial hours, several tapes and DVD allocation affect the total. The published wording does not settle those details or state the VAT treatment. BetaSP and HDV have a separate quoted rate of £20.00 per hour plus the cost of the output media, so do not apply the ordinary VHS rate to those formats. Keeping format groups separate makes the conversation about costs much clearer.
Cine reels belong on a separate estimate
For 8mm and Super 8mm cine film, convertfilm lists £8.50 for a 50ft spool, £18.00 for a 200ft spool and £25.00 for a 400ft spool. Its 9.5mm wording asks customers to add a single £10.00 fee to the standard prices. These are film prices, measured by spool size, and should stay separate from an estimate for videotapes.
Photograph reel labels and note the sizes you can identify without unwinding the film. If a collection includes both reels and cassettes, create two short inventories and ask for a combined written estimate with each part itemised. This also gives relatives an opportunity to identify which reels matter most before you commit to converting the whole collection.
Agree the handover and condition checks first
The website names Three S Films Ltd at 12 Regent Square, Penzance, Cornwall, TR18 4BG, and invites customers to call 01736 367912 to discuss their requirements. Use that conversation to agree how to hand over your particular materials and when the work can be completed. An address alone does not establish opening hours or a drop-in arrangement.
The published recorded-delivery arrangements concern film: it can be posted and returned by the same method, with postage charged according to package size on a job-by-job basis and no additional fee for that service. Confirm arrangements for videotapes separately. Before handover, number each item, photograph its label and flag visible damage or suspected mould. Ask whether damaged material can be assessed; avoid trying to force a jammed cassette or clean fragile media yourself.
Choose an output you can use beyond the television
DVD is explicitly mentioned in convertfilm's video conversion price. If your priority is watching on a phone, sharing with relatives or using a private online archive, ask whether the provider can also supply video files, which file type it offers and what that costs. Do not assume a DVD order automatically includes a file download or a USB copy.
Once the results arrive, compare them with your inventory. Play the beginning, middle and end of each recording, check any expected sound and look for missing sections. Keep a clearly named master copy and a separate backup before making edited versions. Retain the original tapes and reels too, and agree their return as part of the order rather than treating conversion as permission to discard them.
Let the family add the dates and the stories
After conversion, Memrial provides a separate private family archive for digital memories. It does not convert physical tapes and is not part of convertfilm. The free plan includes 2.0 GB of storage shared across the archive, with no card needed. Consider the size of your finished files when choosing what to upload first, and keep your independent backup.
Invite relatives to help identify people and occasions. Timeline accepts exact or approximate dates, so a recording labelled only as a summer holiday can still be placed around its likely year and found by year later. Comments and stories can preserve the details that the pictures do not explain.
A Live Watch Party synchronises an uploaded home video, with the host controlling play, pause and seek while relatives nearby or far away join voice and text chat. The free allowance is three hours per month with up to six participants. For a family reunion, Event Memories offers a secure occasion contribution link: contributors sign in but need no archive membership, their photos and videos enter the event album, and closing the link keeps the collected memories.