**How to put DVDs of family home videos onto the cloud.**

If you have DVDs of your family films, then you already know how fun it is to pop in a DVD and relive your family history at the push of a button. But did you know that DVDs are actually quite limiting when it comes to sharing and preserving family movies? Let’s take a closer look at the limitations of family films on DVD and how you can transfer the DVDs of your family movies onto the cloud to the benefit of your entire family—and to the benefit of preserving your family history.

Limitations of Using DVDs for Family Videos

DVDs are a step up from VHS, which is now an outdated method of film preservation. However, there are still some limitations with having family movies on DVDs. The two most significant limitations are as follows. One, the fact that DVDs do not last forever: They can be lost, scratched and eventually will not work due to the natural degradation of the DVD material. The second limitation is that you can’t easily share DVDs with other people in your family, which makes sharing family movies more difficult than it has to be; for instance, if you want to share your childhood home movies with your sister who lives across the country, there’s no easy way to make a copy of the DVD for her.

The solution to this problem is simple: transfer DVDs to the digital cloud. This way, family history and family films can be shared using an easy digital file that can be sent to whomever you would like. The file will also be backed up on the cloud, so that if something ever happens to the DVD, you have a copy and your family history isn’t lost.

How to Transfer DVDs onto the Digital Cloud

Now that you know that you want to transfer your family movies DVDs onto the cloud, all you need to do is follow the step by step guide that will teach you how to back up your DVDs on the cloud for easy sharing and storage.

Step One: Transfer the DVDs to a computer

You will first need to transfer the DVD files onto a computer. This will almost always require using a software program, since most DVDs are encoded and it’s not as simple as dragging a file onto your laptop or computer desktop.

Step Two: Check the format

Once you have the DVD video files onto your computer, you will need to make sure they are in an accessible format. The most accessible format today is “.mp4,” so this is the format you should aim for, as it can be viewed on almost all smart phones, laptops, computers and tablets. If you are using a software program, it will give you the option to choose the format.

Step Three: Upload to your preferred cloud—and share!

Next, upload it to your preferred cloud service such as Google Drive. Then share with friends and family and enjoy the fact that your family history is now accessible and preserved.

To learn how to film your grandparent with a smart phone click here.

To learn how to back up your old photos click here.

To learn how to convert old family slides click here.

To learn how to Label Your old photo digital scans by using metadata click here.

To learn which free video editing software is the best click here.

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