Try before you buy.
As I had several hours of film that I needed to transfer, I decided that it would be worth a small investment to test a few firms before I committed to one. With that in mind, I found five DVD companies that looked promising and sent the same small reel of film to three of them. All three DVDs sent back to me were satisfactory, though there were some glaring differences. As a result of my testing, I've come to a couple of conclusions.
One is that you shouldn't place too much faith on what you read on these companies' websites. For instance, the "frame-by-frame" process advertised by some is, in my experience, of dubious value in the real world. How do I know? I compared the frame-by-frame DVD from one of my test companies to the non-frame-by-frame DVDs from another. Now, there were many differences among the DVDs, but I tried to focus in this instance upon the issue of whether there was a discernable advantage to "frame-by-frame". When I used my DVD player's pause button to view individual DVD frames, I could see that the frame-by-frame process did, indeed, result in a distinct transfer of individual frames from the film to the DVD. However, when I watched the DVDs at normal speed, I could not see any advantage at all to the frame-by-frame process. None. If you run your movies in stop-motion fashion, you'll definitely prefer the frame-by-frame process, but if you like to watch your home movies at their normal speed, my opinion is that you don't need it. Do your own testing, though, to confirm this for yourself. Also test a "wet gate" process, as I did, to see whether its benefit with YOUR movies is worth the premium you'll pay for it.
Another conclusion I've reached is that no company's DVDs are likely to be superior in ALL respects. For example, just because a DVD shows fewer film scratches or a greater percentage of each movie frame doesn't mean that it will also have the best color. One of the DVDs sent to me had a very slight blue tint to almost every scene. I'd have believed that this tint was due to my film's aging if I hadn't looked at the other two DVDs. One seemed to vaguely favor purple-brown tones (which I liked less than the blue tint), and the other had a more neutral balance. However, the neutral one had a few scenes that were a bit darker (not really objectionable, but noticeable) than the same few scenes on the other two DVDs. So don't expect any company to do the best job in all areas. You just need to find a company that gives you what you consider to be the best balance of compromises. And the only way to do that is to put several to the test.
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Of course, sampling only three companies is hardly what I would call an exhaustive test, but it's probably more than most people do. My advice is to pay a little for test DVDs before you choose one firm over another. In all likelihood, you'll find that you'll be generally happy with any of the companies you test, but there's also the chance that you'll eliminate a turkey.
I'm not going to reveal which company I chose, because my films and my standards may be different from yours, and I don't want to prejudice you. So, just put a few companies to the test for yourself. Don't take anybody's word that one firm is the absolute best or even the best value. In the meantime, here are a few of companies that I considered (the three I tested are among them):
http://sharethememories.integracomputing.com
http://www.videoconversionexperts.com
http://www.goaggressive.com
http://www.clvideo.com
http://www.spectraphotovideo.com
