Yesterday, a customer came in with a piece of history. She was bringing us 8mm film found in the town of Needham’s time capsule, which had been placed in a cornerstone of the Needham town hall in 1902.

Time capsules are a wonderful way to bring a community together, whether that community is a large town like Needham, a small neighborhood, or just a family or group of friends. Typically, time capsules aren’t full of important historical information, they are preserved so that future generations can look and see simple everyday items that were important at the time, and what technology, in various forms, was available.

The spectacle is in seeing items from over a century ago in pristine condition. For example, the Needham time capsule contained a 4 cent newspaper, crisply folded, and books of notes from town meetings, all of which were over one hundred years old. There were programs for clubs and societies such as the Tea and Toast Club for Women, and a “phonebook” that was a single page of numbers because home phones had just become popular. These items speak to the time; they tell us how people connected with one another, what they did for entertainment, and how the town was governed.

As technology changed after the turn of the century, communities buried away time capsules containing things like phonographs, radios, televisions, car parts, electrical outlets, light bulbs, cameras etc. They did this with the idea that, in hundreds of years, someone would open the capsule and learn how things used to be. They could understand how times have changed.

Technology is changing so fast these days that burying a time capsule brings the knowledge that anything we put in will be drastically outdated when the capsule is opened. As we have seen here at Play It Again Video, technology can change so much just within a person’s lifetime, and the technology we rely on to capture and preserve our memories can fail us or even become obsolete.

That’s why being in this business is so rewarding. Here we can digitize people’s precious memories and keep them preserved for years to come. That is how we helped the town of Needham unlock memories from the past. Converting 8mm film to DVD, as well as cleaning and rehousing the film to preserve it longer is one way we can help our customers make sure their memories won’t vanish due to a format becoming obsolete. Providing this service to the community and keeping history alive is why Play It Again Video started, and has to stayed in business for over 25 years. Just think—25 years ago, we were copying film onto tapes, and today we often put it onto a hard drive that can hold hundreds of hours of video and still manage to fit in your pocket. I wonder what we’ll be doing in another 25 years!

Visit our website at http://www.playitagainvideo.com
You can view a customer story of the Needham woman bringing the film in on our youtube: http://youtu.be/7VzafPfLcJo
If you live in Massachusetts, stop into our studio at:
112 Needham St. Newton MA

Jay Booker is one of our favorite customers. And his story is one of the most entertaining.
In the early ’60s, Jay and his friend started a non-profit 8mm film club.

They would show classics like Adam’s Rib, Casablanca … When I say show, I don’t mean press a button, and the screen turns on.
This was the ’60s. Watch the video above and see how Jay Booker did it.

Hi I came in today with a very special project to work on. One of my very closest friend from college – and I hate to admit it now but that goes back 40 years – unfortunately is struggling with cancer. She turns 65 in a middle of her chemo and her brother-in-law decided something that would really be nice to help lift her spirits and know how much everyone loves her would be to put together a photo-journalistic-kind of album of all the important people of her life wishing her well and sending her good energy.

I noticed that I don’t have a single photo in digital of her, of us. She and I. But I looked through my photo albums there was a photo from my wedding, less than 40 years ago and then a few photos over the years. So I came in, it was just wonderful, how helpful, how beautifully these old photos were scanned and how sensitive to the project they were.

And now I am going home with a beautiful bunch of photos that I can send of to her brother-in-law and its part of the recovery.

We received a phone call today from one upset woman. She explained her husband had died in May after a sudden illness.

With the holidays approaching, she wanted to do put some of the photos her husband had taken into a music video montage for her kids. “It’s a beautiful way to celebrate his life, the places he was, the vacations he took with them…“, she added

Here’s the problem: there were 31 carousels of slides that were completely unlabeled. Each slide carousel had 100 to 140 slides, so we’re talking thousands of slides here. Even after I offered her to view her slides at our store – we have viewing stations for these old memory media – going through thousands of slides still seemed very daunting to her. So we decided a different approach. She’ll randomly pick a carousel to go through, view the slides, and pick out the ones that touched her. Then she’ll do another carousel. The minute she finds 50 slides she can use for the video montage, she will stop.

The slides she picks will be from different periods of their family lives, may not even be contiguous periods, but it’ll still be a beautiful video slideshow.

So ladies and gentleman, label your memory media. These days, you’re not recording in 8mm film reels, VHS tapes, Hi8 tapes, it’s all digital. Label your digital file folders. If you backup family photos in hard drives, label the hard drives. Maybe fifty years from now, someone is trying to piece your life together, make it easy for them.

Today, I learned from a customer that “Play it again, Sam.” is one of the top film misquote. Meaning, never in the film Casablanca, did anyone utter the phrase, “Play it Again, Sam.” “No way”, you say. That was my reaction too. But read it for yourself in the Top 15 Film Misquote.

The phrase is often believed to have been said by Bogart in the movie, Casablanca. In fact, Bogart never said it quite like that. The closest he came to the phrase was: “You played it for her, you can play it for me…If she can stand it, I can. Play it!” How about Ingrid Bergman’s character? What she actually said was “Play it, Sam.” Doesn’t it make you want to watch Casablanca all over again, just to prove this yourself?

We are Play it Again Video. But we answer to Play it Again, Sam too. After all, at least once a week, someone calls and asks, ‘Is this Play it Again Sam? I need to transfer my old home movies to DVD.”

This guy, Mark, came in with old Super 8mm home movies from his mom’s attic.  He didn’t know what was on it, so he brought the film in to view them on our projector to decide whether he wanted to spend the money to convert the Super 8mm film to DVD or not.  He kept shaking his head when he watched them.  I was puzzled why little happy kids running around on the old home movie should be so objectionable.

I understood when Mark commented, “Wow, I  have been going to therapy for the last 10 years trying to undo my childhood.  What do you know, turns out my childhood is not so bad after all.  Here’s the evidence.”  That is precisely why I take a lot of home videos.  So if my children end up in therapy accusing me of total parental neglect, I can whip out these videos and say, “Here’s the evidence, I took you to the zoo, I took you camping, etc.”

Capture your good times, and remember to publicize them, especially to the kids, over and over and over again.  Because according to Kodak, every kid has a happy childhood.

If you can’t remember what your childhood is like, go dig out those old 8mm film reels, or 16mm film reels from the attic and convert those old home movies to DVD so you can watch them again.  It may change what you remember about your childhood.  For the better, I hope.

Rush job today.  Needed it by 4 pm. For a court trial the next morning.

It was a surveillance tape (VHS) that needed to be transferred to DVD ASAP. A company had been missing valuable art pieces from their walls.  Over the years, the business owner had treated himself to expensive work of art to grace the walls of the office he spent so much of his life in.  Mysteriously, pieces of art work were disappearing.  Stolen.  He didn’t have any surveillance camera in his office. After all, he had built a close-knit team that worked so long and so close together, they were like family. Setting up a surveillance camera to monitor their every move was the last thing on his mind.

He consulted the building’s security team to see if he had any ideas. The security officer had an idea.  Though there were no surveillance cameras in his office, there was a surveillance camera in the lobby.  Since the company’s office was on the 23rd floor, most probably, the thief would take the elevator.  Based on the date of the disappearance of the last art piece, the security officer pinpointed the surveillance VHS tape to inspect.

You may wonder, a VHS tape can only store up to 120 minutes, how does it capture a day’s worth of lobby comings and goings.  I learned that surveillance camera records in a funny way.  Something about multiple number of frames per seconds so that when you watch a VHS surveillance tape, the video timecode on the tape goes multiple times faster than real time (the number of seconds that lapse on your watch).  That’s how a whole day’s worth of recordings can fit on a VHS tape.

Enough of technical trivia, I’m sure you want to get to the bottom of the story.

Once the VHS tape was transferred to a DVD, it was much easier to go through the video on the computer and spot the ‘thief’.  How was the thief identified?  He walked out of the elevator with a mysterious bulge around the waist.  Sadly, the business owner identified the thief as one of his regular clients.  When the owner compared records and dates of the client’s visits, they coincided with dates art pieces disappeared off the wall.

Most of our customer stories are heart-warming touching.  This one is not so heart-warming, I’m sorry to say.

At Play it Again Video, a VHS to DVD transfer lab in Boston, we are not just performing a technical process of turning old VHS/VCR tapes to digital formats. We are protecting precious memories; there is a story behind every film/video transfer job. Other more heart-warming Customer Stories:

• She used to be so little
• I am looking for my father

Play it Again Video has been around for over 24 years. We serve about 10 customers a day, that’s 3,500 customers a year, that’s about 84,000 customers out there spreading the word.
Still, to be heard as far away as in Prague, Czech Republic. That’s something.

Yet, that’s what this guy said. His friends in Prague told him to come to Play it Again Video to transfer his VHS tapes to DVD.

Are you still hanging on to VHS tapes? VHS tapes are not meant to last forever. The magnetic media that VHS tapes, and other analog tapes: Video 8, 8mm tapes are made of degrade with time even if you keep it in cool, dry, dark condition.

Wayne Alpert has successfully trained professional basketball players since 1985.

He came to Play it Again Video to capture highlights of his training program into a video that can be shared publicly. His team of trainers has now expanded their training programs to young aspiring players of all ages, starting at age 10 and above.

“Imitating moves is not understanding basket ball. Understanding excellence is.”, says Wayne. And that’s a difference that has made his training so effective.

“I love working with Play it Again Video. Their patience and perseverance help me come into the 21st Century. I’m sure we’ll be doing many video projects together.”, adds Wayne.

If your son or daughter is passionate about playing their basketball, you should really contact Wayne. His office is right in Newton and he can be reached at (617) 233 6924.