Digital Roots Studio

brought in a cassette to be transferred to a CD and the work was completed three days early! staff was welcoming and helpful, the price was incredible and the finished product exceeded my expectations — awesome

I LOVE DIGITAL ROOTS.
I found a stash of dusty VHS tapes filled with dusty memories: birthday parties, graduations, my grandparents’ wedding (transferred from a reel of film to VHS many years ago!!!) and wanted — nay, needed! — to rescue them. Thankfully, I found Digital Roots in Oakland, a business dedicated completely to the task of rescuing your old memories.
Andrea helped me from start to finish, which was no small task. She transferred all the tapes to DVD, which took about a week. Only then did I realize that I could only edit and make copies of the footage for Grandma if it was copied from the VHS tapes to a hard drive. She then helped me figure out what kind of hard drive was best for digital images, what program to use to edit the footage, and how to send it to various family members (it’s coming, Grandma!!!). She even let me ship my new hard drive directly to the store so that I didn’t have to make an additional trip. In short, Andrea is a hero.
The store itself is a little hard to find: it’s half a block past the Chevron on the same side of Piedmont, next to Ride Oakland. Push buzzer #F to get buzzed inside.
They give you estimates and email you when your files are ready. They are super friendly, super helpful, and I super recommend them. Thank you and you’re welcome!

Great professional service! Highly recommend and will definitely return if I need the any audio and video transfer!

Digital Roots Studio was awesome! Can’t recommend these guys enough.
Like you, I’ve been sitting on my small mountain of family movies (VHS and Hi8) tapes for years and decided it was time to do something about it. I reached out to Sean and he was a very helpful and active collaborator in understanding my needs. We decided to digitize 40 hours of footage to a newly purchased hard drive. He gave me a fair quote and met the the due date on time!
The footage looks amazing and I can’t wait to start editing these videos and share with my family and friends. They also stayed open late to accommodate my schedule so could pick up the footage. A+ customer service. I am so thankful and relieved that Digital Roots Studio backed up my memories.
Joel Goodman

Fantastic operation. I had a large job, 70+ hours of video tapes going back 20+ years. They managed to recover them all, even some that I could not read on my home device. Everything was carefully labeled and attention to detail was scrupulous. Would use their services again in a second. Reasonably priced too.

Cool people, great work. I had old 8 mm footage that’s more than 50 years old and it came out great. I’ve already recommended a friend today.

Outstanding experience! I brought in a large amount of 16 mm, 8 mm, and Hi8 film and some old VHS just after the holidays — footage of my parents in their youth dating back to the 1930s and 1940s. Andrea and Sean were great. Project was completed on its due date with the digital files and original materials all sorted and well organized — much better than when I brought everything in! The clarity of the digital files are excellent — definitely recommend HD transfer, it’s worth it!
One key affirmation of their integrity — they only charge for what they digitally transfer even if less than the initial estimate. In my case, a few of the 16 mm reels were in very poor condition with advanced «vinegar syndrome» but rather than take a chance running that film through their machines and risk further damage beyond repair, they recommended I take those few reels to another studio which they knew had a different process and equipment which might work for this specific situation. Sure enough, it appears the damaged film will be mostly salvageable. I would recommend Digital Roots Studio without hesitation!!!

I had a 48 year old 16 mm film of a football game that I needed converted to digital format. I am extremely happy and satisfied with the result. The lady at Digital Roots was friendly, knowledgeble and helpful. I received dvd’s and files on a usb drive. Their rates were very reasonable. I highly recommend this business.

I took my treasure to Digital Roots based on Unilocal reviews. Upon arrival I was greeted by Andrea, she provided me the reassurance I needed to turn this 50 year old recording of a moment of my teens. During my «interview» of her I was impressed by the commitment that she and her partner Sean have to helping us preserve our historical treasures. Inexpensive and quick service transferring my 8 mm film to DVR. Thanks again to Andrea and Sean. Jim

Excellent experience.
I had 3800 feet of 8 mm footage that was shot from 1959 – 66 sitting in my garage. I needed it transferred to HD video files, in order to edit something for the family. Not only did DRS drive from Oakland to San Jose to pick up my footage, but they transferred it flawlessly and delivered back to my house in two weeks.
I could not be happier.

I had a very small project that needed done and Digital Roots Studio not only did a timely job but treated me like I was a large customer., I am glad I discorvered this great company and look forward to using them again.

They did a fantastic job. I had my wedding videotape from 20 years ago and some mini tapes from an old camcorder transferred to DVDs. I checked out various places on the Internet — wanting someone reliable because these are precious memories that you do t want lost or destroyed. To was not disappointed. Reasonably priced and professionally done within a week. I give them five stars and recommend them to all.

My sister passed in September 2014. I asked my cousin to put together a video for the memorial with the intention to include an audio tape of my sister and I from 1969. I had two reels that I believed may be the audio tape… but not sure. I ran them down to Digital Roots and picked up the finished product that was ready a day before it was promised. I was so pleased with the audio. We used it in the video and my family was elated. What a precious gift! The service was friendly, kind, and professional.

The reason I chose Digital Roots is because every Unilocal review had 5 stars, I thought that was a good sign, and it was. This is an awesome business. I had a bunch of old Hi-​8 tapes and slides transferred. They did a magnificent job and they worked within my timeline. I’ve already recommended them to one friend and will be bringing back more of my materials to be digitized (I’m inspired now).
Make sure follow the directions to their exact location, it’s a bit hard to find the first time.

Absolutely love digital roots. I needed 7 vhs tapes transferred to dvds. Not only did they respond quickly via email, they also gave me the teacher’s discount and charged me for five 2 hour vhs tapes and two 1 hour vhs tapes (when I told them I had seven 2 hour vhs tapes) since two of them ended up being shorter than an hour!
They also gave me estimates beforehand, and emailed me promptly a week later.
I definitely plan on getting more of my vhs tapes transferred to dvds from digital roots!

Gosh, no place to convert vhs to dvd in SF anymore so across the bridge I went. They did a perfect job transferring everything and even contacted me before they did one of the transfers because the vhs was screwed up and they didn’t want to waste my money converting it. I also love that they archive things for 30 days in case you need to make adjustments, which they can then burn to dvd again for you without you bringing the vhs back.

What a fantastic experience!
I had an old vhs of a difficult-​to-​find British theatre production, and I wanted to convert it to dvd. This two-​person team handled the order quickly. They rearranged their schedules several times to work with my own itinerary nonsense, and even waited twenty minutes for me when I was late for the pick-​up. I tried to make up for the wait by tipping them, but they weren’t interested in that at all. In fact, Andrea reeeally wanted to give me change after I paid for a $ 19.96 order with a twenty. She is just such a decent, friendly and hard-​working person. My day was better after meeting her. :)
In terms of my project I was so very pleased with their conversion of my vhs to dvd, and the extra effort they took to make me an extra copy when they felt that the printing on the cover of the dvd wasn’t neat enough (I think it was perfect).
I will never go anywhere else for my transfers.

I am extraordinarily pleased.
My mom has been wanting to scan some family photos for years, but has been too scared to hand them over to anyone with a professional quality scanner.
So, my mom hands them off to me, I fly across the country with them, and what do I do? Hand them off to someone with a professional quality scanner. :)
In the end, the job was probably a fairly easy one for Andrea (and likely not a big money maker). However, she went above and beyond and was willing to meet me at the UPS store to both pick up and drop off the photos to put my mind at ease. I would definitely recommend her and will be a repeat customer if I ever need photos scanned again!

Very very satisfied with the quality and speed of their scanning of a bunch of odd-​sized very old family photos, for distribution to cousins. And with the price!
There will be more pictures coming from me.
These guys are the best. You won’t find better quality or service anywhere.

As my Mom was packing to move to France she handed me a large, flat, round metal container containing an 8 mm video. Luckily I’m old enough to be familiar with non-​digital media, but not old enough to own a projector. Enter Sean & Digital Roots, who masterfully transferred tape from my 4^th birthday party onto a DVD that I was then able to actually watch.
Somewhere I have more — or my family has more — of those film containers, which I am now eager to find so Sean can unravel the mysteries of their content, like how smooth were my uncle’s dance moves in the early 80s… ahhhh 8 mm video, so much nicer in readily a viewable format. Many thanks to Sean for giving me a sharp movie that brought back memories.