Who We Are
DiJiFi has been helping clients in the US since 2007 converting old media (photos, slides, film, audio, videos, paper documents, books, microfilm, microfiche, etc.) into digital files. We have transferred over 11,500,000 feet of film, over 8,500,000 photos, and over 1,500,000 hours of video and audio recordings for museums, institutions, government agencies, religious institutions, artists, companies, universities and families across the country.
“Digitize once, digitize well.”
This is our motto. Every day we work knowing that these memories will likely only be digitized once, and we have been trusted to do it well. There exists in our management and our culture a strong sense of ownership as well as a feeling of responsibility to the client and to ourselves. Clients have responded by giving us the strongest reputation online with more reviews than companies many times our size. Please check our Trustpilot reviews online.
Like many stories, our begins in Manhattan and grows nationwide. We provide digitization services all across the country and internationally as well. We have served to digitize and archive photo, video, film and slides for the New York City Fire Department, United Nations, Brooklyn Historical Society, Kabbalah, Asia Art Archives, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Sotheby's, NBC, HBO, Intrepid Museum, 76'rs, Tibetan House, Catholic Church Archives, many famous artists who we can not name due to confidentiality agreements, among many others.
Our Exceptional Values
We want to respond to your needs as best we can and as quickly as we can. As you will find around our site, there are many intricacies to the work we do and we will often transfer media twice to be sure we are getting the best result for our clients. If a film transfers with a small hair in the corner we notice, we mark it for re-transfer, knowing this could be done better. ‘Good enough’ is simply not.
Long live communication. When you call you can speak with someone who actually works here and can answer every question. You can write and get a detailed response that does not just gloss over the smaller parts of your question. You can walk in and we will go over your order in person, or we will pickup and deliver it if you are in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens. We serve anyone, anywhere via shipping, with orders of any size.
Early Digital Revolution
The capturing and storage of video, audio, film and photo evolved slowly where initial efforts to capture in digital were on tape and evolved overtime to CDs, DVDs, Mini-discs, and now Blu-ray. Depending on the type of media, it was not unusual to either capture in low quality digital in standard definition such as MP3 in audio and or 480p MPEG2 video. These options were less difficult to share and less difficult to duplicate.
However, the evolution of digital and mobile technology has transformed digital significantly especially as a result of mobile phones, cheap data storage options, higher quality and smaller lenses and the evolution of cloud computing allowing you to store media in central repositories. This evolution means what was done in the past has to be redone for digitization purposes.
Video, Audio, Film and Photo of the Past
Old media was stored on paper, film or tape and could not be shared or copied easily. It was static and local. It was difficult to move and expensive to store. There were thousands of formats from 8mm, Super 8mm, 35 mm, VHS, Beta, U-matic helical, reel to reel, cassette, four track, eight track, prints, slides, negatives, Mini-DV, HDV, Betamax, LP and on and on…
Many video tape standards and even film standards varied by nationality and country of origin and so different players could not play all the different types. There were even high definition and low definition and of varying qualities each generating different quality of images and sounds. This is all gone in the new digital era as major differences are only based on operating standards and codec differences which can easily be bridged if you are technically savvy.
Preserving Memories and Evolution of Digitization
DiJiFi has been in the business of helping families, institutions and artists preserve and distribute media stored in old formats (photo, video, audio, DVD, film) for 17 years. During this time, we have seen the evolution of digital and how digital conversion has revolutionized media storage, preservation, enhancement and sharing. I hope this article will help you to figure out how to best preserve your memories and share them for future generations in the new digital world.
Impact of Digital Revolution on Media Preservation
There have been multiple impacts of the digital revolution on old media preservation. The lessons from DiJiFi for you are outlined here to help you in understanding the impact. More important than anything, the amount of video, photo and audio content in today’s digital world is enormous and challenging. When you add your past content such as old video tapes, audio tapes, prints and slides and records and documents to that, it is even more challenging as the volume of digital data is becoming overwhelming. Organizing this material is critical and finding the right tools to do this is even more important. The size of the files are also getting larger. The needs for more data storage and larger bandwidth is also increasing.
Computing Technology, Internet and Storage
As media formats and standards evolved overtime, the cost of digital has become significantly more affordable. As this occurred the quality and options for digital capture has increased proportionally. This has given our clients lots of options for capture and storage. This has also allowed us to capture old media to higher quality standards. However, while the result of the digital revolution has been lower cost storage and internet, there has been a significant increase in the size of digital files as we have evolved from 480p (TV quality) to 720p (DVD / SD quality) to 1080p (Blue ray) and now 2k and 4k.
The size of digital files as we have been able to capture in higher and higher quality video, audio and photo has meant even larger need for storage and bandwidth. At this point, as DVD has become old technology and is being phased out, there are many options for current clients versus in the past. Clients who converted in the past are now converting again as digital evolution means newer formats.
Blurring the Lines Between Digital and Media
There is a blurring of the lines between technology and media as most things are just becoming digital and you need to be able to utilize software and new technologies to be able to enjoy, preserve and share your media safely and securely. There is no more separation between the music on a cassette or LP, the LP player and the song itself. The medium is the technology and the message itself. This brings a great deal of challenges to the older generation and makes the newer generation less sensitive to history and the past as it all seems just part of the larger messaging and media onslaught that is taking over. You need to be tech and media savvy as a result. But we here at DiJiFi are able and willing to help you navigate the technology that will help bring us all together with our shared pasts and our bright futures.
Let us help you preserve those memories.
Get in touch for a free estimate on your digitization project.
