Frequently Asked Questions About Photo, Video & Audio Digitization

If you don’t see your question answered here or would like more information, please don’t hesitate to call/text us on (203) 208-9447 or email info@rememberwhenever.com and we’ll be happy to help!

GENERAL SERVICES FAQ

  • We’re at 170 Post Rd, Ste 209, Fairfield, CT 06824 but we offer free pickup & delivery throughout this area.

    Please note that as we do offer pickup and delivery, there is not always someone at the office so appointments are required.

    Please be sure to call ahead before stopping by.

  • We predominantly serve Fairfield County, CT and the neighboring counties, but we have customers who ship their media to us from all over the country.

  • We're a locally-owned business right here in Fairfield County, not a big brand that ships your irreplaceable memories to a warehouse across the country.

    Your media stays local from start to finish, and you're working directly with our lead technician rather than a call center.

    Paul personally handles every order with over 14 years of hands-on experience in media digitization. That's not a new hire running tapes through a production line. That's someone who's been doing this for a long time, knows what can go wrong, and genuinely cares about the result.

    We also offer free pickup and delivery on any size order throughout our service area, so you never have to leave the house.

    See what our customers are saying about us.

  • Absolutely. We accept shipments from anywhere. Just be sure to use a tracked, insured service for peace of mind.

    You can ship your media to 170 Post Rd, Ste 209, Fairfield, CT 06824.

    Remember to put your contact information in the package so we can get in touch once it arrives!

  • We will!

    We currently provide free pickup and delivery within this map area, and a $1 fee per mile, each way, from the border of that area to where you are.

  • No minimum! We'll happily pick up a single tape or an entire collection - free pickup applies to orders of any size within our free pickup area.

  • Most orders are done within a few days to a week, but larger orders may require a little longer.

    Around the holidays our service tends to be very sought after, so as such, be sure to place your order early.

  • Yes, but there may be an added fee. Availability depends on our current queue.

    Contact us and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

  • The big mail-away services ship your media out of state to a large facility where it's processed in bulk. Your tapes or photos go into a queue with thousands of other people's orders, handled by staff you'll never speak to, and returned weeks later.

    If something goes wrong, you're dealing with a customer service department, not the person who actually touched your media.

    With us, one technician handles your entire order. Nothing is outsourced. If we have a question about your media (or you have one for us), you're talking directly to the person doing the work.

    Yes, we cost more than the cheapest mail-away option. But factor in what you're actually getting: free pickup and delivery, faster turnaround (days, not weeks), direct access to the technician handling your order, and media that never leaves the state. Factor in service fees and shipping costs both ways with a mail-away service and the gap closes fast.

    Here's what one customer had to say after trying both:

    "Working with you was amazing. You're responsive, professional. You connect with the material, and your turnaround time is very reasonable.

    [The other company] I will never work with again. The quality was ok enough, but the process was convoluted and ridiculous."

    Your memories deserve more than an assembly line.

  • Yes. Everything stays local, highly organized, and secure. We use an organizational system that ensures nothing gets lost, misplaced or mixed up.

    Nothing is ever outsourced or sent off-site unless discussed with you first and agreed upon.

  • Yes. You always get your originals back along with your new digital files or discs.

    We don’t throw anything away unless you’ve asked us to.

  • Only if you explicitly ask. Otherwise, we return everything.

    There may be an additional fee to do this if the materials need recycling or shredding.

  • Absolutely. We have over 14 years of experience working with libraries, archives, universities, governments, non-profits and families with large or historically significant collections.

    We can help with planning, sorting, and preservation strategy alongside archival-quality media digitization.

  • Not at this time. But we can recommend good local print shops if you want physical prints made from your scans.

  • You don’t need to, but it definitely helps us if you need things organized digitally.

    For instance if you have a group of photos from a certain vacation that you’d like to be put into a digital folder and have the folder titled, just put the photos in a zip-loc bag and write the title with a sharpie and we’ll transfer that across to the digital version.

    Your organization becomes our organization.

    If any of your media has a date on it, we will try to keep it in chronological order once digitized.

  • Yes! We’d be happy to walk you through the process from getting your materials together to viewing and using your newly digitized media.

    We want to make sure this service is as easy as possible for each and every one of our customers, from start to finish.

    If you need tuition on video editing, photo editing or anything of that nature, we can put you in touch with great people who provide that service.

  • The easiest way is to give us a call or text at (203) 208-9447, fill out our contact form, or hit the "Schedule My Free Pickup" button on any page.

    We'll have a quick conversation about what you've got, give you a quote, and set up a convenient time to come pick everything up.

    From there, we handle the rest and let you know when it's done.

  • Every order comes with a free 30-day download and sharing link. Once your order is complete, you'll get a link to download all your files directly to your computer, phone, or tablet, and share them with as many family members as you like. Need longer than 30 days? We can store your files indefinitely for just $5 a month.

    We also offer USB thumb drives ($15 each, which covers the cost of the drive) and if you’d like additional DVD or CD output for audio and video orders it’s just $15 per tape.

    Just let us know when you place your order.

  • We accept all major credit cards, checks, cash, Venmo, Zelle, and PayPal.

    We also offer financing through Affirm for larger orders.

  • Yes! We offer financing through Affirm, so you can spread the cost of your order over time.

    You'll receive your digitized files and original media first, then pay off the order afterward at a pace that works for you.

VIDEO TAPE TRANSFER SERVICE FAQ

  • Yes. We can usually repair damaged, broken, or chewed tapes and even rehouse them if needed.

    We offer VHS tape repair, VHS-C tape repair, 8mm tape repair and MiniDV tape repair.

    If the tape is stuck in your VCR or camera we can usually remove that too. Please note there may be an additional fee to do this. Please contact us for further information.

  • Sometimes. We use professional equipment with stabilization and noise reduction, which helps a lot. But if the tape is too far gone, results may be limited. We’ll give you a realistic assessment.

    Sometimes it just needs to be played back on a different machine and we have a few different kinds we can use to get the best possible quality.

  • Yes. We clean moldy tapes before transfer to protect our equipment and improve playback. There’s an extra charge of $10-30 per tape for this depending on how moldy the tapes are.

  • No. If a tape is totally blank, we don’t charge.

  • With our Premium Transfer service we have the ability to correct for the color fading that tends to occur over the years on video tapes, adjust the brightness/contrast/color curves and improve the audio clarity.

  • We do not have a preview service, but if there’s something you specifically don’t want, like TV shows or movies, we can make a note to keep tapes of that nature aside, or not record that footage if it’s on tapes with something you do want.

  • Unfortunately, we cannot transfer copyrighted video material unless you own the copyright.

DVD TO DIGITAL FAQ

  • We convert standard DVDs, Mini DVDs (the small discs from camcorders), and Blu-rays.

    We can also handle un-finalized Mini DVDs, which are discs that were never properly closed out in the camcorder and won't play on standard equipment.

    For full pricing and details, visit our DVD to Digital page.

  • If you still have the original tapes, it's almost always worth converting those instead.

    The original tape contains more video information than the DVD copy, which was already compressed once during that earlier conversion. Re-converting a DVD adds another round of compression, which can soften the image.

    That said, if the originals are long gone, we can absolutely work with the DVDs and the results are still very watchable.

    Just let us know what you've got and we'll point you in the right direction.

  • Absolutely. We handle all formats, and there's no minimum order. Bring us the whole collection and we'll work through everything together. Most of our customers have a mix of different media, so this is pretty much our everyday.

8MM/16MM FILM TRANSFER FAQ

  • Sometimes the film can be too brittle to transfer, but we’d be happy to inspect it for you and give you a recommendation on how to get it digitized.

  • If the color on your film has shifted (you’ll usually see a blue/cyan or purple/magenta tint to the film) we can usually restore a more natural color balance and often restore the color completely with our Standard film transfer service.

PHOTO SCANNING, SLIDE SCANNING & NEGATIVE SCANNING FAQ

  • No, if you want to leave them as they are, we’ll carefully remove them from the album (if possible), scan them and replace them to the best of our ability

    If you want to save some money on your order, you can remove the photos yourself and bring them to us loose!

  • No. Leave them as-is. We’ll handle the removal and replacement of the slides from their respective housing.

  • We cannot curate your images for you as quality is subjective, and there’s no way for us to know what’s important to you and what’s not.

    For images you can see clearly like photos, it’s best to either bring us only the images you want us to scan or mark the images you want scanned with post-it flags.

    Slides are best viewed with a light box and loupe, both of which are fairly inexpensive to acquire.

  • It’s often best to keep the photo in its frame and have a digital photograph taken by a professional, so as to not damage the photo upon removal.

    We have businesses we can recommend for this service if needed.

  • We only use flatbed scanners, and never feed/document scanners. While feed scanners are much faster at scanning the images, they often cause streaks of color through the images and don't allow for the careful control of quality that we insist upon at Remember Whenever.

    For more information, visit our Photo Scanning page.

CASSETTE TAPE, VINYL, REEL-TO-REEL & CD RIPPING FAQ

  • Yes. We can reduce hiss, clicks, pops, and hum, and boost clarity.

    We can go all the way from gentle noise reduction to full remastering of your media.

    For more information, check out our Audio Restoration page.

  • Nope. Just pack them securely and we’ll take care of the rest.

  • Yes! We repair damaged cassette tapes and reel-to-reel tapes, including broken or snapped tape, splicing, and shell damage.

    Whether you want the tape repaired and returned as-is or transferred to digital while we have it, we can help either way. We charge between $10-30 depending on the extent of the damage. Give us a call on (203) 208-9447 for more information.

PHONES & DIGITAL MEDIA FAQ

  • Unfortunately we do not offer this service at this time.

FORMATS & OUTPUTS FAQ

  • Our standard file type is .MP4 (H.264 codec) as it’s the most compatible across the board.

    We have the option to provide .AVI or .MOV files upon request, and ProRes files are available for our Premium tape transfers.

    If you have a particular file type that you need, just let us know.

  • Our standard is MP3 as it’s incredibly compatible, but we’re happy to create WAV or FLAC/ALAC upon request.

  • JPEG is our standard for all of our image scanning orders, however we can scan as TIFF files for an extra fee.

    Please be sure to let us know when you place the order if you need TIFF files.

  • You can, we don’t add any copy protection - but keep in mind DVDs use older compression formats that aren’t ideal for editing or archiving. We recommend also getting MP4s for long-term flexibility.

CONTENT POLICIES FAQ

  • Yes, if it's legal and personal (i.e., not commercial). We treat all content with professionalism and confidentiality. No judgment, just digitization.