When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I make people cry.   It’s true.  One of our services at Carpel Video is film-to-DVD-transfers.  We take your old home movies, usually shot by Dad or Grandpa years ago, and convert them to DVD for easy copying and playback.  We have a screening area in our lobby. The customer can screen a few of their tapes before leaving them or check a little bit of the finished DVD.   But as Elvis used to sing, ”…that’s when the heartaches begin.”

The average customer finds these films somewhere in the basement next to a projector that hasn’t worked in years. Often their films haven’t been seen in a generation. Long lost relatives populate these movies. When the DVD starts the customer cries. You should see our Kleenex bill.

I can empathize. I found a ninety-second color film made of my family’s holiday dinner five years before I was born. All these relatives I knew as old folks were young, gay and gorgeous. They were teasing, talking, and dancing. I put the Godfather theme under it. I cried myself when I saw it.

If you have a big family you can amortize the cost of the transfer by making a copy for each of your relatives. You shouldn’t wait until the last minute. For security we do all transfers in Frederick and the work is time-consuming. We never send your films or tapes out.

We also produce video streaming for web sites and instructional/promotional programs for businesses. But the transfers touch people in the deepest way. Your fathers and grandfathers were the geniuses who knew the value of preserving your family’s history. We just add music and make them more accessible. It’s a noble calling. Carpel Video is proud to make people cry.