Sending a Bit of Home to Our Soldiers

With more than 350,000 American soldiers deployed overseas, it’s a challenge to keep those soldiers closest in our hearts feeling near to home. Pictures and videos are one way to keep them posted on the family adventures. Even if just for a moment, images of home can take them away from the action and provide a reminder of why they make the sacrifices they do.

With Veteran’s Day today, consider creating a care package for someone you know serving overseas. It doesn’t need to be a husband or mother, but perhaps a friend who you may just want to surprise with a bit of home. Here are some ideas on what to include and how to make the delivery something special.

• Touches of home: Pictures and home videos (For instance, A Smileshow DVD created from a combination of photos and video clips), children’s artwork, holiday decorations and personal letters
  
• Entertainment: Magazines, games and books
• Personal Items: Lip balm, razors, powder laundry detergent; toothbrushes
• Consumables: Powdered drink mixes, Non-perishable snacks, candy (no chocolate – it melts!)

Once you’ve gathered up the items you’d like to include, consider personalizing the packaging. Decorate envelopes and small boxes by covering them with drawings and photos – a great kid-friendly activity. Or gather friends to write a quick personal message on thick paper which can then be wrapped around the box. Whatever you choose make sure to pack your decorated packages tightly in a box to last the rigors of transit.

Looking for more ways to get involved? Here are some organizations doing great things to support our soldiers:

Any Soldier – civilian group organizes care packages to soldiers

Books for Soldiers – arranges for the distribution of books, DVDs and games to military

Portraits of Love – photographers donate their time to send professional family portraits to deployed loved ones

Operation Gratitude – sends care packages addressed to U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions and on military ships at sea.

Smileshow (Digital Photos & Video Clips in a DVD Movie Slideshow) featured in Creating Keepsakes’ December issue!

We love reading about great ideas…especially when they include YesVideo! In the latest issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine, Smileshow, YesVideo's new service that creates a movie slideshow from digital photos and video clips, is included in this month’s Tips & Tricks column. Check it out along with all the other cool projects and articles featured in the magazine.

Now that Halloween is behind us, we’re already thinking about the many to-do’s on our year-end / holiday list. Putting aside all the gift-giving and holiday parties, what I love about this time of year is take the opportunity to reflect on the year past and share some of those memories with loved ones. In my family, we have a bunch of big family get-togethers and chat about our achievements and the major events from the year. As a tradition, I put together a quick photo collage documenting all the highlights for my family to keep in an album. It’s our alternative to the family update letter.

In a recent blog post, CK Creative Editor Megan Hoeppner shows readers how to make a holiday-themed DVD holder – perfect for delivering your Smileshow to friends and families while serving double-duty as a holiday greeting card.

Whether it be a family cookie swap, the annual update letter, a photo book or a YesDVD or Smileshow, we want to hear how will you celebrate and reflect on 2009. Post a comment or join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter.

Happy November!

Terrific and Terrifying Halloween Photo Tips

Here at YesVideo, we love Halloween. What’s better than getting to dress up in a fun costume? Dressing up in a fun costume and eating candy! Halloween is hands-down one of the most popular photo-taking holidays we want to see yours. Head to our Facebook page (if you are not already a fan, join us!) and share your favorite photos or videos from Halloween 2009 and years past!

Here are some tips for taking terrific and terrifying photos this Halloween.

Terrific:

• Take notes on who is under what mask…five and ten years down the road you’ll want to remember who was under the Scooby Doo mask and who was Batman. Transfer those notes to the print, photo book or Smileshow – whatever you choose to share and display.
• Try and snap photos right at dusk – this is some of the best light for snapshots and you can skip the flash.
• Have fun! Encourage the kids to act out their costumes and take photos with their friends. Halloween is all about having fun and posing can be a buzz kill. Keep up the energy and the result will be some great photos to cherish.

Terrifying:

• Don’t forget to stock up on extra batteries or make sure to charge in advance. You don’t want to run out of juice before trick-or-treat bags are halfway filled.
• With all the time and energy put into the decorations, don’t miss out on photos of the house, foliage, jack-o-lanterns and of course, the family pet.
• Don’t forget to jump in a few of the photos yourself. Ask your neighbors to take a moment to snap a shot of you and your little ones. You’ll love looking back on all the wonderful Halloween memories.

We love comments - tell us what you, your kids or grandkids are dressing up as for Halloween and how you plan to save and share so those special memories! Post on our Facebook wall or in the comments section here. If you have some tips to share we want to hear those, too.

Have a safe and spooktacular Halloween weekend!

To Transfer or Not to Transfer

Last week’s blog entry highlighted Home Movie Day where there were several live regional events around the country, some even resulting in media coverage including local newspaper and broadcast pieces in Rochester, Orlando and Baltimore and other cities nationwide. In most locations professional archivists were on site and available to inspect participants 8mm, 16mm, and Super 8 film, to ensure the film was not damaged and to encourage attendees to preserve their memories. Not as many experts, however, were on site to discuss transferring the film to digital formats.

Decades ago, movie film was a great way to capture special moments. But with time, that film can break down. Viewing those special moments can also be inconvenient, because film projectors have become obsolete, and they’re too difficult to set up and operate. The reels of memories have often been thrown into boxes and stored in closets and basements, just to become forgotten and faded. Many film archivists and preservation experts may simply suggest NOT transferring the film format to DVD, because if you take care of the film properly it will last. They emphasize the importance of preserving the footage in the original formats for occasional viewing using old film projectors. However, the physical media is still susceptible to loss and damage. For example, if a flood, fire or even accidentally throwing away an old box of 8mm film occurs, how do you recover your memories?

On a digital format, the memories are easier to view and share with others. More importantly, unlike the physical medial, digital formats do not fade with time. Additionally, if you are like most of the population, watching your old memories on bulky old film projectors isn't a realistic option, simply because you either don't have the proper working equipment or it's difficult to set up and use.

In the world of video and film and conversion, there are many business and tools out there. Consider transferring your memories to DVD. And also hang onto your old media once it has already been digitized. Transferring old movies to DVD does not in and of itself harms the original media, but it provides extra assurance that your memories will live on.

Home Movie Day 2009

Home Movie Day is this Saturday, October 17, so start digging in your attics and basements for your 8mm, Super 8mm and 16mm movie film reels, VHS or 35mm slides.

Home Movie Day will be observed in more than 50 cities worldwide. The event, celebrating its seventh year honoring home movie memories, is an opportunity to share your home movie memories with the community and learn about film and video care, storage and transfer   Many people have boxes full of family memories that they've never seen because they lack the proper equipment or are afraid that the films are too fragile to be viewed again.  Bring your old memories back to life. 

Why home movies?  These little films, yours or your grandmother's are unique and personal, interesting, funny and certainly worth a watch.  Rifle through your attics, dig through your closets, call up your relatives, search out your family's home movies and bring them to the nearest Home Movie Day this Saturday.

All are welcome to find the nearest Home Movie Day location and bring out your old VHS, 8mm, 16mm, 35mm slides or Super 8 film. To find the nearest Home Movie Day activities in your community visit www.homemovieday.com. 

For information on hosting your own local Home Movie Day event, visit http://www.homemovieday.com/get_involved.html

For tips on converting movies to DVD, please visit YesVideo at http://www.yesvideo.com/services/filmtodvd/.

YesDVD Service Expands In South Dakota

YesVideo is proud to share that its YesDVD service is now available to Lewis Drug customers across South Dakota. The YesDVD service provides transfer of videotape, movie film, slides and photo prints to DVD along with a wide selection of customization options including music and theme selections, color enhancement and music video highlights. With the YesDVD service at Lewis Drug, local customers will have lifelong-lasting access to their home movies and images – all on a DVD that’s perfectly personalized to them.

Like South Dakota’s motto, "Great Faces. Great Places," YesDVD is an easy and affordable way for consumers to preserve the “great faces” in their home movies and photographs on a professionally-featured, Hollywood-style DVD. Innovative features include:

• Automatic, intelligently-selected chapter scenes with DVD chapter menus for easy searching and viewing
• Three 60-second music videos, with video highlights automatically set to music
• A customer YesDVD case cover, with the YesDVD’s titled and thumbnail images to represent each chapter
• Customer’s choice of background music (for film, slides and prints to DVD orders) and DVD theme

Customers can visit www.yesvideo.com to find the nearest Lewis Drug store nearest them. And, they can save time and enjoy the simple ordering process with the new web-based Order Form Wizard, while continuing the benefit from convenient drop-off and pick-up at South Dakota store locations. The Order Form Wizard is an online tool that simplifies the ordering process for YesDVD video and photo transfer services.

The price for this YesDVD service starts at $29.99. This week only (the week of October 5) customers can receive a free 2nd DVD copy with an order placed at www.lewisdrug.com or www.lewisdvd.com.

Share Your AWKWARD Memories?!

At YesVideo, we are constantly trying to communicate the importance of preserving and sharing treasured family memories. The baby's first steps...The special Christmas gathering...The first dance at your wedding. We preach that these moments aren't meant to be stored away in shoeboxes in closets and garages; they should be preserved and everyone should remember these beautiful memories forever.

But this picture isn't always as beautiful and perfect as we'd like to remember it. What we never mention is that many of our family memories are downright embarrassing! The glasses, braces, bad skin! The teenage years! The 70's and 80's fashion! Let's face it -- there are a lot of memories we'd really like to forget....


The other morning I caught an interesting segment on Rachael Ray's show. I was already hours late for work so I decided to sit and watch it. She was interviewing "Mike and Doug," two buddies who started a cool website called awkwardfamilyphotos.com. Awkward Family Photos is a blog where people can submit their bad family photos - bizarre poses, funny fashion, and other family quirks.

Working in an industry where numerous consumer photo and video websites showcase perfect family memories, the common image of a family is a set of attractive parents with their young children, all wearing matching outfits, laughing and skipping through a beach in the sun. What we will never see is the one kid in the background, caught picking his nose on camera or the perfect family portrait - oops - the mom's dress is see-though! Awkward Family Photos is a collection of these forgettable moments.

I immediately thought of a dozen photos my parents have stored, that can top the awkwardness level of most of the pictures on this site! (My sisters would probably kill me if I posted them!) Most people can really relate to this. Almost everyone has old pictures that expose their family history in an embarrassing or but fun way. Awkward Family Photos is a place where people embrace this side of their family histories.