1982
2018
In 1982 when we opened our doors for business our name, Dimensions In Scanning & Conversions symbolize our dedication to the scanning and conversion of hard-copy documents, paper photos, slides, negatives and a magnitude of video tape types to their new up and coming digital counterparts. We were armed with two Kurzweil scanners that were the size of a large copier. Our services included scanning hard copy documents for companies and OCRing them into editable documents for standalone word processors and desktop PC's software applications like Word Perfect. With that we moved into converting between different formats (Word Processors, Spreadsheets, and Databases) on PC and Macintosh. Over the years we have continued to expand on variations of these services.
Image scanning has always been a staple service that we have enjoyed since we opened our doors in '82. It is always an amazing journey for us, as we walk through history and time to create amazing relationships with our clients while ensuring their memories for generations to come. Securing your families digital tree can be a daunting task and it is something that we understand very well, here at Disc. In 2010 we completed our own digital conversion of our family history. Collecting pictures, negatives, slides and video tapes from as many of our family members as we could. It was awesome to get in touch with so many family members, some we had not seen in a very long time. The entire family was excited to see what everyone had to share, motivating us to get the project done and collect as much history as we could.
In the end we had converted close to 250 family videos from VHS, 8mm, and Betas to digital mp4 files and well over 20,000 photographs, slides, and negatives were scanned. We have since built a website on smugmug.com that holds all the images for our entire family to see and share. Everyone is helping with identifying the people and places using tagging and keywords. It was a very rewarding and fun family project.
It was really crazy Disc has been doing this since we opened our doors and had never digitally archived and converted our own family genealogy. The one thing that we learned in this endeavor is, hard copy photographs and video tapes have a shelf life and many items seem to disappear or are thrown out over time as families grow.
In 2001 during tropical storm Alison my mother's home flooded here in Houston. In that flood we lost much of our family history as the water damaged and/or destroyed many of our own childhood/family memories that were on video tape and photographs. Today we have everything stored digitally and backed up to the Cloud and on hard drives so they can be preserved for our children and grandchildren for years to come.
While our primary focus is the scanning and conversion we are always here to help. If you are unsure how to proceed with your own project please come by and see us we are here to share our knowledge and assist how we can.
How do you store your family history?
Next up Tagging and key-wording of digital files. How, When, and Why!