About Us

digitalFAQ.com is the current online presence for a family-owned media business that started in 1977. We specialize in most all forms of print and digital media, including video editing, photography, print layout and design, web layout and design, technical writing, print editing, public relations, marketing and e-commerce. Our services are available individually, or in a package, where we could create your entire line of small business promotional materials. 

Our Philosophy 
Our ideology is two-fold: (1) We firmly believe in providing information to the do-it-yourself'ers of the world, assisting those who are capable of doing certain tasks on their own. (2) We want to assist you with your projects, whenever your time, skill or abilities end. We tend to handle projects that are generally too difficult to do on your own.

Our Guarantee to You, Our Customers
We're not a cold, heartless mass-production operation. We spend one-on-one time with our customers (usually in e-mail or on our forum), to understand what their needs are, and how we can be accomplish those goals, providing a professional-quality product in the end. Our projects are handled a few at a time, and are carefully reviewed before being returned. Our very best work goes into every project, we never half-ass it like so many of our competitors seem to do.

Our History
Like most organizations that have existed for decades, our history is complicated. What began in Dallas, Texas in 1977 as a part-time typesetting/layout operation, has slowly morphed as technology developed. By the late 1980s, computers entered our daily operations, and desktop publishing, graphics and advanced layout services were added. As the 1990s went by, photography, web design and video was added. We shifted almost completely digital in 2001, adding DVD creation workstations and professional DSLR cameras. This website was originally the personal project of a family member, a video hobbyist and cartoon collector, created to help friends and fellow enthusiasts. It was gobbled up a few years ago, as the family business shifted to adopt more digital technology, and began to abandon more and more tape-, film- and paper-based productions. The site was renamed digitalFAQ, to represent our expertise in all digital media areas. Most of the original guides are still available, and the creator still has a strong presence here, updating these and adding more as time permits. 


More common questions and answers...

1. Are the guides for professionals or newbies?
The answer is "neither". The site is aimed at explaining otherwise complicated video, photo and computer techniques to the layman. Therefore the programs and equipment used are the most user-friendly options that exists, without sacrificing quality. It strives to provide up-to-date materials on many aspects of DVD-based digital video and related software. Experienced video professionals have contacted us with thanks for the information found here, as well as newbies and all those that lie in between. 

2. How can you have so much information?
The primary author of the site guides credits his knowledge as being a collaborative effort amongst friends and fellow video enthusiasts. At one point in time, the site served as his personal notebook, but put online so the rest of the world could benefit from his knowledge and experience. 

3. What do my donations pay for?
Without donations, this site would not exist today. Everything you see was funded by donations. Most donations go toward the maintenance of the many free guides found on this site, including a very large bandwidth/server/domain bill. Some goes to hardware and software, mostly for testing purposes, which in turn is used to make guides. If you find this site helpful, please make a donation so it can survive.

4. Who owns the guides? Can we put them on our site?
Unless noted, all guides found on the digitalFAQ.com domain were written by the staff of this site. Guides may not be copied or reproduced in part or as a whole, without expressed written permission from digitalFAQ.com. Links to our pages from other sites are encouraged. 

5. Having trouble viewing the site? 
If your firewall is set too high, if your Internet/LAN settings are customized to block most connections, or you have a pop-up blocker, some of this site may not function properly. Please reduce the firewall level to normal levels, allow cookies and Javascripts, and disable the pop-up blocker. Firefox 3, and Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 are the browsers we support and test on, as those are the browsers used by more than 95% of our traffic. Also realize this site has security features that disable things like cut/paste on certain pages.

6. What are the site stats?
Currently, the digitalFAQ.com site attracts between and 50,000 and 200,000 unique IP addresses per month, and it can vary month to month. Many visitors come back for multiple sessions. The average viewers stays for about 3-5 minutes, with more than 20 percent staying longer than 5 minutes. This number increases on a monthly basis. This site can generate up to 2GB of traffic per day on average, and can peak out at twice that on heavy days. The site is compressed to absolute maximums to achieve highest possible bandwidth efficiency and fast page loading. The most visited pages are the forum, the capturing guides, the video editing guides, and the DVD media guides.


And some disclaimer information...

Software images and sample video clips: All programs and images thereof are the copyright of the respective owners. All video clips and images found on this site serve as examples and fall within the confines of the Fair Use Doctrine, as this site is educational in nature.

Fair content criticism: This site will not purposely libel (written slander) any company or individual, however we do fairly review hardware and software. If we think it "sucks" or is "garbage" it will be labeled as such. Inversely, if we find it "amazing" or "excellent" it too will be labeled as such. We gladly accept new software and hardware for review purposes. We acquire new hardware, blank media and software on a monthly basis, and as time permits, write reviews/guides on it from our findings.

Piracy stance: Simply stated, piracy is bad. We do not condone software piracy or copyright infringement. All information found on this site is intended for legal use only, for individuals seeking legitimate help with digital media technology. People that explicitly ask for assistance with their mal-obtained wares are turned away or ignored. Do not waste our time with such questions. No pirated software is available for download from this site, although some links are provided to official company sites where our readers may purchase it. 

Liability: The information presented on this site is freely shared in good faith to help others. We are not responsible for errors with, or damages caused by, software or hardware, either on this site or on the computers of our readers. As always, when using a computer in new ways, or installing/uninstalling new hardware or software, be sure you have plenty of data backups.

Bias: This site is an independent source of information, not supported by any one company. This site adheres to absolute journalistic ethics (real ethics, not 'Fox News' fake wink-and-nod ethics) and this means there is a separation of editorial and advertising. At no time will advertising revenue or donations to the site effect the fair and independent reviews of products and companies, as presented on the pages of this site where review-style editorial and commentary appear. 

Accuracy and errors: This information on this site reflects hard work and careful research and testing, with a good-faith effort to carefully present valid and accurate information. Information on this site will only be "corrected" when presented with respected and documented proof to that contradicts our own research and presentation. We appreciate assistance given by our readers, as it concerns reporting typos or grammatical errors.