ADVANCED VIDEO SYSTEMS INC

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My wife and I decided it was time to transfer and preserve some of the 20 trays of slides we had to DVDs before the images on the slides disintegrated any more than they had already.  The slides date back to 1962. We picked out 702 slides that we definitely wanted to preserve. For several weeks I researched various companies on the internet that provided slide-to-DVD transfer service.  The prices varied from a low of $250 to $600.  In all cases I found the slides were not scanned locally but rather shipped out of state to large-scale photo processing labs.  One day I heard an ad on a local Baltimore radio station about slide to DVD transfers done locally by Advanced Video Systems (AVS).  The next day I phoned AVS, and Stacy Gillis, the Senior Editor and Owner of AVS, answered my call.  She was extremely knowledgeable about the slide transfer process and told me that she was the one that actually scanned the slides and that she reviewed each one by hand and enhanced the resultant JPEG photos as necessary.  She took the time to discuss my particular project and what I expected to be done.  After agreeing to a price, which by the way she discounted since I didn't need the work done until after Christmas, I dropped my slides off at AVS on 12/13/12.

After Christmas I picked up my slides, and the DVDs and JPEG disk that AVS produced.  Overall the quality of the photos on the DVD were excellent but there were some problems.  Some slides were never scanned, the heads of people were cut-off on some of the resulting photos, and the photos on the DVD were not in the correct order.  I emailed Stacy and told her about the problems.  She agreed to meet with me at AVS several days later.  I brought my 702 slides and a bunch of notes with me.  For a little over 2 hours I sat side-by-side with Stacy as she corrected all the problems. I learned quite a bit about the slide scanning process -- which was very interesting.  By the way, AVS uses very good photo editing software and all the work is done on Apple computers.  The slides that were missing were rescanned, the heads-cut-off problem was corrected by rescanning the slides turned 90 degrees in the scanner and through some photo editing software, and the photos out of order problem was due to a JPEG numbering problem and was quickly resolved. AVS burned new DVDs and a JPEG disk.  If you have ever tried to scan slides yourself on a home scanner you will find that it is not as easy as it sounds.  And some of the problems I mentioned above you will experience when doing it yourself.  Also I might add that scanning slides yourself, editing and enhancing the resulting JPEGs, and then producing a high quality DVD presentation is a very time consuming process.  I know because I have done it myself on a much smaller scale.

Overall the quality of the work was excellent, and you couldn't find nicer people than Stacy and the others who work at AVS. But the most important thing about dealing with AVS is the fact that this is local company.  I didn't have to have my slides shipped out of state to have the work done -- so the risk of loss during shipment was eliminated.  And when it came to resolving some issues with the product, I was able to resolve it locally.  I can't imagine trying to resolve similar problems if I had decided to drop my slides off at COSTCO or one of the other large photo lab chain stores or worse yet, mailed them myself to an out of state lab.

Was the price a little higher than some of the others?  You bet, but you get what you pay for.  I am very pleased with the service and product I received from AVS and would highly recommend them to others.

THE SERVICE WAS COMPLETED ON SCHEDULE AND AT THE COST ESTIMATED ORIGINALLY. THE STAFF WERE FRIENDLY AND PLEASANT. I KNOW HAVE MEMORIES THAT I CAN ENJOY OVER AND OVER AGAIN.