This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Business & Tech

Local Business Profile: Preserving Family Memories, One at a Time

YesVideo came to Norcross in 2009 and now employs over 100 people at its Oakbrook Parkway locale. The company prides itself on the fact that it doesn't fill orders, it serves families, as if they were their own.

Home movie making has come a long way since the days of 8 millimeter and Super 8 film. After Betamax, VHS tapes and video cassette recorders invaded the American middle class home, camcorders and their smaller video cassette tape counterparts came around, followed by DVDs.

The advancement of the Internet the last two decades now allows one to instantaneously capture video imagery on a cell phone and transmit it in real time over the Internet. Or post it as a video on Facebook, or to your own computer channel on YouTube. Simply put, making home movies has never been easier.

But what about all those old VHS tapes collecting dust in a closet? Or the 8 mm film reels sitting in the basement? Better a dilemma for the present day, what about the video images sitting on a computer hard drive or SD memory card taking up space? Are we forever destined to watch these present day “home movie videos” on a computer screen or smartphone?

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

The answer? Not if you’re aware of YesVideo and what its 100-plus employees do at the company’s East Coast production facility located on Oakbrook Parkway.

In Norcross since early 2009 and part of the $250 million North American digital conversion industry, YesVideo takes generations of out-of-date media formats (VHS and Beta tapes, 8 mm film, slides, etc.) and converts them to today’s most popular viewing and sharing formats (DVD, Blu-ray and online).

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

The company is also the only digital transfer company that offers its services in over 34,000 retail locations in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. In Georgia those retailers include:  Costco, CVS, Ritz Camera, Sam’s Club, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Wal-Mart. All it takes from Joe Consumer is a visit to the store’s photo department to drop off all those old tapes and films needing conversion.

 “YesVideo is in the business of preserving family memories,” said the company’s Director of Marketing Communications Sharleen Reyes. “We offer convenient solutions for families to protect and share their most precious memories - weddings, birthdays, graduations and any recorded life events - for generations.”

“I think we provide an important service,” said Director of Operations Bo Morris while on a tour of the Norcross facility. “And we do it well.”

Apparently they do. Last year alone, YesVideo converted over 2 million orders of videotapes, film reels, slides, prints and digital media, much of it done in Norcross. That’s a lot of family memories.

Why Norcross?

YesVideo started operations in 1999 and its company headquarters and West Coast operations are located in Santa Clara, Calif. Morris said the company came to Norcross when it expanded for a variety of reasons, one being Atlanta having an already trained Kodak workforce that used to produce YesVideo products, the other being the company’s desire to ship East Coast products from the East Coast.

“Shipping costs are a big part of our overhead,” Morris said. There was also another driving force, he said.

“The state of Georgia and especially Gwinnett County got very aggressive,” Morris said. “They helped us train people through Gwinnett Tech. It was a good partnership.”

Moving From The Present To The Future

In walking through the Norcross plant, a customer’s 8 millimeter film dated July 1948 was in the process of being converted to DVD. Considering the film’s 60 years in age, the converted picture and new resolution was remarkable.

“And because of the technology we use, you look at these pictures and it’s remarkably clear,” Morris said.

But he cautioned consumers to be careful with waiting too long to convert tapes to DVD or online.

“Tapes deteriorate every day,” he said. “You just won’t see any video on them anymore. But if there’s anything to be gotten off of them, our VCRs will get it.”

Reyes said the company’s latest offering allows consumers to convert SD and multimedia memory cards to Blu-ray discs. For the consumer, that means an easy way to convert and watch present day videos shot in High-Definition, in High-Definition, on all those huge, 1080p flat-screen’s glory through the use of a Blu-ray player.

“Many consumers today have High-Definition videos and photos 'trapped' on SD cards, digital cameras or home computers. They are unable to share them because the image files are too large to upload online and the quality of the images are lost once they are transferred to standard definition DVD,” Reyes said. “YesVideo’s new conversion service enables consumers to fully enjoy the images and videos by transferring them to Blu-ray discs that can be easily shared and viewed, while retaining the high-quality picture, clarity and sharpness of HD.”

With more than 27.5 million Blu-ray devices in American households, the introduction of YesVideo’s Blu-ray output technology comes at a perfect time, she said. Consumers are increasing their use of digital cameras, smartphones and digital camcorders to capture family memories, and YesVideo’s new service now provides them with an option for viewing their pictures and videos in an easily accessible, High-Definition format.

“Whatever the customer wants, that’s where we’re headed,” Morris said. “This company is really dedicated to preserving the memory.”

“YesVideo started with the mission to design products and services that our own families would trust and enjoy. Our employees understand that each order they handle contain a family’s treasured memories, and they handle these memories with care, as if they are their own,” added Reyes. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?