Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common Questions we get. Answers appear when you click the question.

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How can you guarantee delivery during the Christmas Rush Season if you don't know how many orders will come in today and tomorrow?

Good Question! After more than 35 Years of Family Memories Christmas Gifting Season Experience, as a Full-time Open to the Public Year-round retail company, we have history and know the trends very well.
So we plan and prepare for both the expected and the un-expected.
Once again we added more new equipment in 2017 ahead of the season, we run double and triple shifts seven (7) days a week to complete work so everyone gets their gift in time for Christmas.
We also work first come, first served with no exceptions. Since we are already running multiple long shifts we have to discontinue Rush Service starting December 1st, (or sooner if needed) because there is no additional time to provide it.
One exception is for Funeral specific Memorial Tributes.
We work closely with customers to ensure we can do more work for more people in the time allowed.
All of this, while never rushing a job, never cutting corners or compromising quality.
Fast and Cheap are not motivating factors for what we do. Your Family Memories are too important!
We do ask that customers please resist the temptation to call every other day and ask 'are we there yet?'. We understand you may have had experience with other companies, but rest assured we will telephone or email everyone the moment your order is ready and we can be more productive if we are doing the work instead of checking status on orders. Be patient and trust that our 35+ year record of always delivering will stand yet another year!
We won't forget you or lose your order and we know how important it is. We promise!
If we don't specifically tell you your order is too late to guarantee Christmas delivery, (when you bring it in) you will get it on or before the last business day before we close for Christmas Shutdown at the latest. That day is December 21st, 4pm closing, for the 2017 season.

How long will it take to complete my order?

Normal turn-around time depends on how big your order is and how many orders are in ahead of yours. On average, we turn most standard service orders around in four (4) to seven (7) business days. When it's the Christmas Gift Giving Season, we are much busier than usual and turn-around changes daily dependant on the size of orders brought in each day. Once we reach the second week of December, we guarantee only that all orders in house will be completed by a specific date in December or earlier. When we reach maximum capacity, we issue a cut-off notice. In 2014, 2015 and again in 2016, we added substantial capacity and had only a few order requests after Christmas delivery cut-off. We hope to avoid any 'past cut-off' orders again in 2017 because we added even more gear, but get your orders in early to be sure. September is always a great time to bring in Christmas orders.

Do you do all the work yourself or do you ship it out?

This question comes up every other day now, more than any time in our 35+ year history.
Why? It seems a few of our new clients who tried lower cost (bigger) service providers have experienced a variety of unfortunate circumstances due to third party handling.

Answer: We do all of our own work & we do work for hand picked, select Authorized Dealers! Call us to Verify Authorization!
Whether here or at one of our Dealers, your order never leaves our hands!
We know the value of Family Memories! We've done this for more than 35 years!
Your order is not just a line item on a cost chart at the end of each day. More, Faster and Cheaper are not relevant terms in our business model!
We cost a little more and we're worth it because We Care About Everything We Do!
Your Memories are Safe with Us and with our Dealers!
Secure Processes, People and Premises - Because it Matters!

If I need my order in a rush, can you help?

Probably is the best answer we can provide without specific details.
Our Policy: First Come, First Served! So any new orders we receive will be started as soon as the order that came before them is completed!
Exceptions:
a) Life Tributes required for a Funeral Service. Terms and conditions apply. Premiums are applied for this most important service.
b) Rush Requests that are possible without imposing a delay on orders received prior. This is made possible when we have staff and equipment available to work over-time extended shifts. All Rush Requests will prepay a non-refundable Minimum $50 Premium on top of the regular service fee. Premium charges may be higher depending how big the job is and how short the turn time request is.
The only way to deliver a rush order without delaying other clients (which we will not do) is to pay staff over-time, if they are willing to work the late night hours. Some jobs may require two or more staff working over-time to finish according to the rush request schedule. The higher cost of labour for over-time will always be passed on to the client requesting the Rush service.

We see a few new companies offering what appears to be the same service and saying the same things you say, but charging less. Can you explain that?

We've seen many 'companies' come and go in this business during our 35+ years.
At Christmas this service is in demand, so they pop up and appear out of nowhere, (every year), looking for the quick cash grab.
Other times people with no previous business experience start up and create their marketing content by copying everything they see that reads well, onto their website.
Lack of experience and training seem like the plausible explanations.
Inferior equipment and processes are required to be profitable if they charge less than we do.
Unskilled staff (do the math using minimum wage - doesn't add up)
Fly by night cash grabs that give our industry a bad reputation are a sad reality!
It's not the same service!!!!
They say it is and count on you believing they can perform magic for cheap!
Legitimate, but desperate new business wrongly hoping they can grab market share with low prices, then increase prices when they get established!
We've seen all the above many times over the years. All we can do is hope you find your way here so you have no regrets!
We think it's important that we be here next year so you can come back or send your friends to have the same great experience!

Why don't you price match?

Our prices are already as low as they can be while also delivering the best product possible in this price range.
It's simple math! If you pay less, you will get less.
We think your Family Memories deserve to be done right and we will not compromise the quality of your product to lower our prices by pushing through more orders with less effort.
Yes, providing a lower cost service can be more profitable short term, but only if we didn't care about delivering good value.
It's a choice we made and now it's a choice you can make too.

How do I know how much my order will cost?

Since many tape formats have multiple speed options, it can be challenging.
When you bring your order in we will estimate cost based on minimum and maximum run times if it's possible. If you need a precise price, ask us about the option of timing the tapes and providing a firm quotation. We work with customers to ensure no surprises and that you only purchase the services that are within your budget guidelines. With some formats, (Open Reel Audio) it's not possible to estimate and other older formats like BetaMax, U-Matic and now the 8mm Video formats, they are so old and rare that machines, parts and technicians to repair them are hard to find and expensive, so fees apply to some of the un-common and less available format estimates.

Why won't you copy my favorite movie or my favorite exercise video? Isn't a copy for myself legal now?

Bill C-11 has changed the rules and seemingly made this a gray area. It's not gray for us, a service provider!
We know that 99.9% of all people who ask us to do this really just want a disk copy and we really wish it were legal so we could help.
However, we have no way of knowing what get's done with the digital copy we can create, so we have no right to do the work without written permission from a legal authority who controls the rights to the content in question. It's really that simple.
If we enable the digital distribution of copyright content for an illegal digital content distributor, then we have indeed been a part of a crime and that is unacceptable!
We take pride in being honest and we hope one day something will change so we can maintain our integrity and provide this service to the people who really just want to be able to watch something they purchased on a newer, better format.
There are new Digital Rights Management mechanisms being designed as we speak and one day soon, this should be possible. When it is, we'll let you know.

Can I get an extra copy of my disk for a friend or family member?

Your completed order will be available on our systems for two weeks after you pick it up or 4 weeks after we complete the order and notify you, whichever occurs first.
So if you call back for more copies in that time frame, Yes, we can make extra copies from our files. Outside that time frame, you can bring the original disk back in to the shop and we can make a copy. We encourage everyone to purchase one extra copy to use as a backup for when the first disk breaks, gets lost or scratched (because it happens). Bring in that disk because it will be unused and therefore the best copy you have and the copy process will have less chance of failing due to a nick or scratch.

Can I get a Higher Quality copy than DVD?

Yes, there are several options that are higher quality than DVD!
Blu-ray, when done correctly, (the way we do it) is better quality than DVD.
We can provide AVI, MOV, MP4, H264 and almost any other digital file format on Hard Disk, Memory Stick or other storage media.
New formats are always being developed. We prefer to provide formats that follow accepted, tried and tested standards.
However, other formats also available for many other purposes, so call and ask if you want something not mentioned.
When you request a non-standard format, please provide full specs so we can deliver what you know works.