OT: Anyone use Legacybox or one of its competitors?

[HuskyNan]

I have a storage container with about 200 family photos. My grandmother had left me her photos so I am in possession of my great-great-grandparent’s wedding picture from 1870. I have a lot more photos that range from 1880 to today and would like to digitize them before they fall into dust. My husband, meanwhile, has a number of 8 mm family movies he’d like digitized.

Has anyone used one of these digitizing services, where you send your precious photos and films away and receive a thumb drive or CD? They also offer cloud storage for $20/year. Any opinions or experiences you can share?

 

[Bone Dog]

I haven’t used one yet. But I also have a trove of old family photos. In any event, I would not commit to using one of their cloud storage services even if I had them do the digitizing. It’s not simply a question of cost. The virtue of a cloud service is long term reliability and, to me, that points clearly to one of the large established providers like google or Dropbox or even iCloud. These may be more expensive but for most people, it’s likely they already use one of them already and it would just be a matter of upgrading an existing service.

 

[Veteran]

Google "legacybox review". The Better Business Bureau gives then an A+ rating but apparently many customers say they lost their photos. Some say don't even consider using them. There are negative YouTube reviews, also.

Might be a good idea to shop around.

 

[Topsail]

We used Everpresent. They digitized a few thousand slides from both sides and many pictures from 1870 on. We had a very good experience.

 

[Cedar]

I have had good results converting my family’s Super 8 movies to digital with Legacy Digital Productions. I sent them 5” and 7” reels along with a solid state hard drive, and they returned the reels with the digital files on the hard drive. I ordered the Pro 2K conversions with color correction and grain reduction.

 

[Skeets]

I never did it, but I've seen people scan real old photos with surprisingly good results. The scans were better than the originals. You might want to try that. What do you have to lose? I have VHS tapes of the kids and of course many UConn games. Someday I'll get around to digitizing them... Then again there's a lot of things I'll get around to doing someday.

 

[SoCalCanine]

I have no experience personally. But I would HIGHLY recommend finding someone to do this that is local to you AND that has great references. You are talking about irreplaceable family heirlooms! Do you really want to trust them to the USPS or another delivery company and to a stranger that you have never met? Personally I would want to hand deliver and pick up
in the flesh and to be able to look that person I am trusting in the eye. Just IMHO. Good luck!

 

[HuskyNan]

I have no experience personally. But I would HIGHLY recommend finding someone to do this that is local to you AND that has great references. You are talking about irreplaceable family heirlooms! Do you really want to trust them to the USPS or another delivery company and to a stranger that you have never met? Personally I would want to hand deliver and pick up
in the flesh and to be able to look that person I am trusting in the eye. Just IMHO. Good luck!

There are no local conversion companies. Walmart and CVS offer the service, but I'm pretty sure they send it out just like I would. At least I could put tracking info on the package.

 

[Topsail]

There are no local conversion companies. Walmart and CVS offer the service, but I'm pretty sure they send it out just like I would. At least I could put tracking info on the package.

I believe that you are originally from cT? When You come up to visit bring your slides, photos VHS tapes to Hartford to drop off at Everpresent.

 

[HuskyNan]

I believe that you are originally from cT? When You come up to visit bring your slides, photos VHS tapes to Hartford to drop off at Everpresent.

I don’t go up to Connecticut anymore. Everyone I know has moved out