Q.) Who shoots my video & why should I meet them?

Like a wedding photographer, wedding videographers have different styles and personalities as to how they approach the documentation of an event. The most important first step to a great video is how it is covered. Our videographers are creative, unobtrusive and specialize at wedding documentation. You will get the opportunity to meet and review the work of the individual who will be shooting your wedding and reception. We here at Royal Weddings work closely with you from the pre-planning, production and post production process of your wedding video. Get to know our videographers, their style, and their experience. Don't take the risk of basing your decision on one person's work and getting somebody totally different. Our videographers take pride in their work, and will work with you to ensure you get what you expect.

Q.) What does studio editing include?

Like working with the videographer shooting your event, you will also get an opportunity to work personally with your events video editor. Our editors are professionally trained, creative, and work with state of the art, in-house digital editing suites. Our edited packages include an opening visual montage that incorporates the wedding invitation with establishing shots of the ceremony/reception location, shots of the bride and groom, plus (if applicable,) San Francisco and Bay Area landmarks from our stock shot collection. We add personalized music throughout the video, mixing it with the live audio. Soundtracks are created for establishing shots, photo sessions, various pre and post ceremony pictures, Photo and Highlight Montages, as well as the closing credits. The editing process also ads tasteful digital effects such as freeze frames, slow motion, and black and white to enhance certain scenes or moments. We also create a closing credit sequence that includes the names of the parents, bridal party, etc., that is layered over several highlighted scenes from the ceremony/reception. Our production to post production turn around is relatively quick; 4 -14 weeks. We offer a quicker service if you wish to pay an edit rush fee. Don't forget that editing times can stretch out longer if you are tardy in getting to us the information we need to start and complete the edit.

Q.) What is the difference between the classic and deluxe Highlight Montage?

The Classic Highlight Montage is a recap of the wedding/receptions main events tightly and creatively edited to a single song, like a music video. It is placed at either the beginning or end of the edited documentation and runs approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
          The Deluxe Highlight Montage includes live audio excerpts from the key events of the wedding nd reception, incorporates 2 to 3 songs, and plays longer at 12 to 15 minutes in length. The Deluxe Highlight Montage also comes on its own separate videotape.

Q.) What is the difference between the classic and deluxe Photo Montage?

The Classic Photo Montage is a collection of 30 favorite photographs of the couple and family, edited to one or two personal songs. It includes dozens of transition, dissolve and/or wipe choices between the pictures. It is included as a part of the edited documentation.
          The Deluxe Photo Montage includes 60 photographs. Digital editing also enables us to zoom in or out or pan across the photographs, and include select sub-titling on pictures. It the same type of effect used on high profile documentaries, which really brings life to old photographs. The Deluxe Photo Montage comes on its own separate videotape.
You can add additional pictures to either montage.

Q.) Analog vs. Digital, which is better?

When video is first recorded there is no inherent advantage to either analog or digital formats. Like audio (LP's vs. CD's), either process of recording video has the potential of reproducing excellent quaity images. The advantage of digital video comes into play as the footage is re-recorded over multiple generations. Analog video has a tendency to loose information over multiple generations, like the skips and pops on those beloved vinyl LP's you played a few too many times.
          A simple way to demonstrate this is to think of sending a document. If you send the document via fax (analog), it will degrade with each successive fax destination. On the other hand, if you e-mail the source word-processing file (digital). there will be no degredation of quality.
          What does this all mean? Digital video has the advantage of being able to retain resolution and color fidelity over many more generations than analog video. Digital video can also be translated into other forms more easily, like DVD, MPEG streaming, or whatever engineers think up next week.
          Royal Weddings uses both analog and digital video technologies. However, our editing is done digitally so that there is minimal generational loss of fidelity from the camera to your TV screen. Edits are mastered and archived on high quality S-VHS. If you wish to have your own copy of the master tapes, digital tape copies are also available upon request. Ask about our DVD options for the best quality available.

Q.) What happens to my Master Tapes?

All master tapes, camera and edit are available to you upon completion of the edit, or within a year from the production date. Owning your master will ensure longer life to your memories. You also have the option of purchasing Digital masters when pre-ordered before editing.

Q.) What is your availability for meetings?

Our focus is on quality, not quantity. Staff and equipment availability limits us to how many events we can produce per weekend. Please contact us by phone at 415-563-3348 or e-mail for availability. Coverage for weekday events is usually available.

We invite you to come to our offices to see our work, and let us answer any questions you may have. Day and evening viewings are available by appointment.

• Monday through Thursday 9:30 AM - 7:30 PM.
• Fridays 10 AM - 3 PM.
• We are unavailable to meet on the weekends due to field production.
  
• Our address is: 1368 Bush Street, Suite 208, San Francisco, California

Q.) What is DVD?

DVD stands for "Digital Video Disc" or "Digital Versitile Disc." DVD, like CD's, is just a format. You can record anything from personal videos to spreadsheets onto a DVD. Currently there are a variety of standard floating around with different video compression schemes, and things like country codes and copyright protection barriers. At Royal Weddings, when we produce DVD-R copies of your wedding video with high quality MPEG-2 compression.

Royal Weddings Standard DVD Option recorded from your S-VHS edit master, has the standard advantages of digital media:

• They are very durable (VHS will degrade more quickly over time, and even faster the more you watch them)
• You can quickly jump to selected chapter points on the disc (approximately every 5 minutes on the standard DVD produced by Royal Weddings)
• You never have to rewind them
• They are very portable (you can even play them on your laptop in an airplane, and thrill your fellow passengers)
• DVD+R compatible >

Additional advantages are available with our Custom DVD Option such as:

• Pure digital pipeline from the camera to the DVD
• Customized disc menu
• Custom chapter points
• Ceremony highlights
• Reception highlights
• Custom case with your picture, name, and event date
• DVD-R compatible >

If you are interested, contact us for pricing, and DVD+R & DVD-R compatibility with your player.

Q.) What kind of eqiupment do you use?

Royal Weddings uses only professinal broadcast quality equipment. What does that mean? Cable TV is piped into your house at a resolution of 330 vertical lines of resolution (VLR) on your TV. VHS only allows for 230 VLR. The NTSC broadcast standard allows for 525 VLR. Without getting too technical, this basically means that your TV has a comb in front of the screen that allows 525 discrete lines of vertical resolution, but you are normally only going to see 330 lines of resolution at best.
          We use DV and DVCAM cameras that record at approximately 500 VLR, and S-VHS cameras that record at 400 VLR. All our cameras have three CCD's (the part that actually captures pictures and translates them to electronic signals) that record a minimum of 500 VLR, and up to 750 VLR on our larger cameras. We usually shoot with a large and small camera, so that we have the option of being less obtrusive if things get crowded. Don't be fooled into thinking we are compromising quality for size; even our smallest cameras record twice information that standard VHS displays.
          We use the tape formats that we do because they offer the highest quality, and performance for NTSC televisions. Hi8 and Betacam are also popular standards, but have limitations. Hi8 is an unstable format that can have noticable dropout (loss of picture quality) if even PLAYED more than once. Betacam, the broadcast industry standard, has an equivalent image quality to the formats used by Royal Weddings, but only has a 30 minute maximum tape length. This could mean the cameraman is changing tape at a critical point in your ceremony.
          Edits at Royal Weddings are done on a computer at a resolution of approximately 500 VLR, and mastered on S-VHS tapes. If you get VHS copies from us, they are mastered from tapes that have roughly twice the resolution that standard VHS is able to retain.
          If you want the best quality your TV can handle ask about our Custom DVD Option which is piped straight out of our computers at 500 VLR, to your TV. Along with a superior picture, there are a multitude of advantages to having your wedding on DVD.

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