Building on the mail-in model first seen by Kodak, simply send your LEGACYBOX package, filled with tapes, film, photos, and audio recordings
Meh price is for DVD output of your moments, however, you will have the option to upgrade your moments onto a thumb drive or the cloud (additional charges may apply for different formats)
State-of-the-art tracking, barcoding, and real-time updates at every step
Includes welcome guide with instructions, barcodes to tag your items, crush-proof box, pre-paid return shipping label and all digitizing
All formats are carefully digitized by hand, right here in the United States
Receive regular email updates throughout the whole process
Access to a personal concierge to answer all questions (must contact Legacybox directly for this service)
Shipping Note:
Please allow 6-8 weeks turnaround, once your Legacybox is received for processing
Accepted Formats:
Tapes: VHS, VHS-C, Hi8, Video 8, MiniDV Betamax, MicroMV, PAL, Digital 8, Camcorder
@mrkenneth Could it be the packaging? One box takes zero separators; two boxes take one separator; four boxes take three separators. Plausible? Or not? Vote in the poll.
@ehsfoewa@fuzzmanmatt@yakkoTDI
Actually it has already happened before your brain processes it. So if everything you experience has already happened, it is not possible for you to change it. There is no free will. It is all an illusion.
Was yesterday’s poll question data mining for today? The high priced stuff is the antithesis of Meh, yet here is a second quality item that has a good reputation.
@jmbunkin@RogerWilco Pretty sure I got each spliced giant roll counted as one item each last time, which made me feel dumb that I was sending in some small (like under 3”) rolls in too.
An elderly man with a magnifying glass paints an oil-on-canvas reproduction for each frame of your home movie. Then each painting is photographed with a film camera and each photograph is scanned. Finally these images are combined into a video file which is sent to you on DVD. We call it “artisanal scanning”.
Magnetic formats such as VHS tape are a bit more difficult, but he’s working on it.
@awk I was going to risk putting my brain in the box to digitize my consciousness so I could merge with cyberspace, but now I’m questioning the hygiene of it all.
@docflash The resolution is going to largely be tied to the medium it was originally created on. Unlike film, which can be scanned at higher resolutions, something like VHS-C is always going to be limited by the format’s resolution, 352x240. Going higher than that is only going to degrade the already fairly-low quality. That being said, capturing at 720p is often done to sacrifice encoding time for quality, though I have no idea what Legacy Box is doing.
Honestly, their prices have always struck me as incredibly high. If you have the technical wherewithal, outside of film stock is really not very difficult — though time-consuming — to do this yourself.
I can’t speak to anything before VHS tapes but I bought a $10 video converter on Ebay and did this myself. It’s easy if you still have a VCR. Worth a try if all you have are VHS tapes collecting dust.
@mehgrl I bought a DVD/VCR combo that was supposed to be able to burn the VHS tapes to the DVD player from ebay about 10 years ago. I never could get it to work… but that was the purpose of the machine. I’d still like to convert my VHSs but going direct to thumb drive sounds more reasonable in this digital age too. Is that the type of converter you got? I’d still really like to convert my movies. I have some hi8 tapes that I have no way of playing… including my daughter’s first Christmas.
@mbersiam Yes, it plugs into the VCR and converts it into .avi or .mp4 format. It isn’t fancy and you won’t have a lot of control over it. If you spend a bit more, you can get lots of conversion tools and editing features as well. Once the video is converted, you can store it anywhere you like.
@styloroc Wow. It looks like Legacy Box doesn’t have much quality control at all.
Considering things sent to them usually have great sentimental value, it would be a complete waste of time.
Thanks for posting a link to this review.
@bbf my wife is an archivist for a local university (and formerly, the City of Houston) and digitization is just one of those processes that really doesn’t lend itself to automation or mass-production, it’s very tedious and requires meticulous attention to detail to achieve quality that is often underestimated.
Personally, as an amateur film photographer, I’ve never been happy with scans of my negatives – at least compared to what I can do with my own pro-sumer grade scanner. I imagine the same is true (and compounded) with more complicated forms of media like motion picture film reel and analog tape.
I think this might be fine if you are making a quick gift for someone who doesn’t really care as much about the quality as the thought, but your originals may be in peril in the hands of strangers.
Seems to me to be a very shitty cheap ass cutting corners push the crap through no standards and zero pride company. Yes they can use my description for their web site. No charge
@mcanavino Ha! I have a working Olympus OM-1. Maybe if I hang on to it long enough it will be worth something LOL. I guess I am supposed to keep taking photos with it so that I can keep these conversion services in business?
Umm, Isn’t this a SERVICE? How is MEH involved? Overstock??? What percent of each empty box do they get? Do they have so slobs working in a basement somewhere digitizing? On another note…What’s the policy on Amateur Love-making movies??? Strictly classy of course.
I’ve gone through several of these (bought Groupon or Living Social sales) and have always been very pleased with the care they’ve taken of my items and to keep me apprised of where my items are in the process. I’ve been more than happy with the outcome.
I had a bunch of 8mm family films. They weren’t in perfect shape, and Legacy Box doesn’t do any enhancing, but they’re now digitized and I can share them with family on my YouTube channel.
If you want to enhance your video or photos, you can do that yourself. I know I would never be happy with someone else’s enhancements.
I did have one recording that was done upside down and LegacyBox redid it for me.
As for the YouTube video above, I understand that if you have the equipment and can do it yourself, it will be better (though not being a videophile, I couldn’t really see the differences he so breathlessly complained about).
I was very happy with my conversions at at only a few dollars per film, I got better than I expected.
VWestlife did a comprehensive review. I’d avoid this company bigly. I bought a “Wolverine” frame by frame 8mm scanner and it’s way better than what Legacybox provides, and I can sell the scanner when I’m done.
This was probably a good business model 15 years ago, but these days, it’s way cheaper to buy a film scanner and/or find a used reel-to-reel player on eBay and do as many conversions as you want at your leisure.
No pretty shoebox, but you can buy those at the dollar store if you feel the need.
@t0nyc0tt4m Same. Been VMP since the very beginning and have no idea what I’m getting out of the deal. Not even socks. I haven’t even ever ever ever been able to score an IRK (or BOC). Wish they would send random crap to loyal VMPers. How many of us could there be?
@Kyeh@t0nyc0tt4m They give away (“sell”) IRKs 100 at a time. Surely they could spare a few hundred random craps for their most loyal customers. (I seriously have no idea how people get 2 & 3 & 4 IRKs. I don’t stalk meh, but I’ve attempted purchase in the first 10 seconds MANY times and never gotten one. Maybe there’s some kind of trick to it.)
Honestly, the DIY folks out there probably have no idea that paying someone else to do this is the only way for some of us to stop procrastinating and get it done.
Sure you can do it cheaper and potentially better yourself, but this deal isn’t a bad one at all.
Plus, it makes a great gift for a tech phobic relative who will trust an “official” company with their mementoes sooner than a son or daughter who means well but takes forever to get around to all those favors they promised.
@brasscupcakes I would agree. The mechanics of scanning hundreds of photos, applying color age corrections based on film brand and age, scratch removal, and doing that consistently for every single scan - and whether you have a photo, a slide, negatives, or 8mm film reels or VCR tapes.
That is the service you’re paying for. There is a time and task where DIY definitely makes sense. This is not one of them. Unfortunately for today’s deal, this one lives up to the site’s ethos and namesake in terms of the quality - if that’s truly what you’re looking for - high resolution archival quality scans to get every bit of information out of what you have.
I could look up how to sew sutures, too. Doesn’t make me want to DIY surgery. Or why go to a restaurant and pay someone else to cook your food. It just slapping some stuff into a pot, apply heat, and presto! Right? Of course not!
If this has value to you, it’s a good deal. If not, and for me, it doesn’t - scancafe offers a much better service, although maybe at a higher price. For me the premium of SC has been well worth it. I’ve had hundreds of photos scanned with them and 30+ reels of films and hundreds of slides - all from my parents who have passed on. They did a spectacular job, and turnaround during peak pandemic was about 3 months. Before that, it was about 2 - to be fair, these were large jobs and the work is time consuming, so the price, time-wise was still worth it.
But for some, this may be “good enough” to get it done at a price they can afford. I won’t begrudge someone that.
Specs
Shipping Note:
Please allow 6-8 weeks turnaround, once your Legacybox is received for processing
Accepted Formats:
What’s Included?
10 Item Legacy Box
OR
20 Item Legacy Box
OR
40 Item Legacy Box
Price Comparison
$136.99 - $516.99 at Legacybox
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Jun 14 - Thursday, Jun 17
WTH
What kind of bargain is this?
Sooooo… It’s more expensive per item if you buy the 40-pack versus the 10-pack…
@fondaporn barbie said: “Math Is Hard . . .”
@fondaporn get two 20s and stick to the Meh.
@hchavers Cheaper to get two 10s and one 20 if you want 40.
The unit price goes up as you buy more?
@mrkenneth Could it be the packaging? One box takes zero separators; two boxes take one separator; four boxes take three separators. Plausible? Or not? Vote in the poll.
I am the legacy. And meh wants to put me in a box! Oh, the horror!
There are lots of things in my past I’d rather not remember. Like this deal.
@fuzzmanmatt This deal is in your present not your past.
@fuzzmanmatt @yakkoTDI everything is in your past after the exact moment you experience it
@ehsfoewa @fuzzmanmatt @yakkoTDI
Actually it has already happened before your brain processes it. So if everything you experience has already happened, it is not possible for you to change it. There is no free will. It is all an illusion.
Was yesterday’s poll question data mining for today? The high priced stuff is the antithesis of Meh, yet here is a second quality item that has a good reputation.
If they don’t put the ‘legacies’ on millennial DVD’s/CD’s, they won’t last, either.
I’m going to shut up and keep my money.
If you have 8mm film, what length is considered as 1 film.
I have one reel with maybe 8 spliced together,is that 1 film or 8 ?
@jmbunkin I’d wager that is one.
Spliced or not, one reel is one reel.
@jmbunkin @RogerWilco Pretty sure I got each spliced giant roll counted as one item each last time, which made me feel dumb that I was sending in some small (like under 3”) rolls in too.
Meh has fully made the transition to Groupon Jr…congrats?
An elderly man with a magnifying glass paints an oil-on-canvas reproduction for each frame of your home movie. Then each painting is photographed with a film camera and each photograph is scanned. Finally these images are combined into a video file which is sent to you on DVD. We call it “artisanal scanning”.
Magnetic formats such as VHS tape are a bit more difficult, but he’s working on it.
@awk I was going to risk putting my brain in the box to digitize my consciousness so I could merge with cyberspace, but now I’m questioning the hygiene of it all.
it’d be worth knowing WHICH cloud storage system’s going to be used, as well as the RESOLUTION of the digitized images.
just sayin’ . . .
@docflash Check out scancafe.com if you want details like that. Recommended. Watch for sales if you’re on their mailing list.
They now do 8mm film reels to HD resolution on BR or files.
@docflash The resolution is going to largely be tied to the medium it was originally created on. Unlike film, which can be scanned at higher resolutions, something like VHS-C is always going to be limited by the format’s resolution, 352x240. Going higher than that is only going to degrade the already fairly-low quality. That being said, capturing at 720p is often done to sacrifice encoding time for quality, though I have no idea what Legacy Box is doing.
Honestly, their prices have always struck me as incredibly high. If you have the technical wherewithal, outside of film stock is really not very difficult — though time-consuming — to do this yourself.
Do they put files on a DVD-ROM or convert it to a DVD movie (that makes it hard to separate/extract)
@rmeden Whatever is more difficult, I’m sure.
@rmeden Clicking one button in Handbrake isn’t exactly difficult, though.
@Telanis You can show my grandmother how to do that. She can barely work her email.
I can’t speak to anything before VHS tapes but I bought a $10 video converter on Ebay and did this myself. It’s easy if you still have a VCR. Worth a try if all you have are VHS tapes collecting dust.
/giphy vhs
@mehgrl I bought a DVD/VCR combo that was supposed to be able to burn the VHS tapes to the DVD player from ebay about 10 years ago. I never could get it to work… but that was the purpose of the machine. I’d still like to convert my VHSs but going direct to thumb drive sounds more reasonable in this digital age too. Is that the type of converter you got? I’d still really like to convert my movies. I have some hi8 tapes that I have no way of playing… including my daughter’s first Christmas.
@mbersiam Yes, it plugs into the VCR and converts it into .avi or .mp4 format. It isn’t fancy and you won’t have a lot of control over it. If you spend a bit more, you can get lots of conversion tools and editing features as well. Once the video is converted, you can store it anywhere you like.
meh… Vwestlife reviewed their services on Youtube a year or two ago and didn’t have many positive things to say about them.
@styloroc It’s just one guy’s opinion, and he gets a little pedantic, but I think his criticisms are valid
@styloroc Wow. It looks like Legacy Box doesn’t have much quality control at all.
Considering things sent to them usually have great sentimental value, it would be a complete waste of time.
Thanks for posting a link to this review.
@bbf my wife is an archivist for a local university (and formerly, the City of Houston) and digitization is just one of those processes that really doesn’t lend itself to automation or mass-production, it’s very tedious and requires meticulous attention to detail to achieve quality that is often underestimated.
Personally, as an amateur film photographer, I’ve never been happy with scans of my negatives – at least compared to what I can do with my own pro-sumer grade scanner. I imagine the same is true (and compounded) with more complicated forms of media like motion picture film reel and analog tape.
I think this might be fine if you are making a quick gift for someone who doesn’t really care as much about the quality as the thought, but your originals may be in peril in the hands of strangers.
Those are some solid questions above.
Seems to me to be a very shitty cheap ass cutting corners push the crap through no standards and zero pride company. Yes they can use my description for their web site. No charge
I can get this done locally, so …
The great thing is, all the old media gets upcycled to sit on a hipster’s shelf next to a broken Pentax camera.
@mcanavino Ha! I have a working Olympus OM-1. Maybe if I hang on to it long enough it will be worth something LOL. I guess I am supposed to keep taking photos with it so that I can keep these conversion services in business?
@Kidsandliz Take pictures of the transfer service box, then transfer those to silver plate.
I thought vampires could not be photographed
Oof
Umm, Isn’t this a SERVICE? How is MEH involved? Overstock??? What percent of each empty box do they get? Do they have so slobs working in a basement somewhere digitizing? On another note…What’s the policy on Amateur Love-making movies??? Strictly classy of course.
@Bumplepimp I’d guess someone on here would be glad to convert your porn if you advertised your need. (snicker
)
I’ve gone through several of these (bought Groupon or Living Social sales) and have always been very pleased with the care they’ve taken of my items and to keep me apprised of where my items are in the process. I’ve been more than happy with the outcome.
I had a bunch of 8mm family films. They weren’t in perfect shape, and Legacy Box doesn’t do any enhancing, but they’re now digitized and I can share them with family on my YouTube channel.
If you want to enhance your video or photos, you can do that yourself. I know I would never be happy with someone else’s enhancements.
I did have one recording that was done upside down and LegacyBox redid it for me.
As for the YouTube video above, I understand that if you have the equipment and can do it yourself, it will be better (though not being a videophile, I couldn’t really see the differences he so breathlessly complained about).
I was very happy with my conversions at at only a few dollars per film, I got better than I expected.
Meh’s math is meh.
(89x4 = 356) < 369
Costco does this for less money. I also wouldn’t trust the postal service right now to not lose such precious items.
@sum1 This deal works out to be $9 per tape, I’m seeing $20 per tape at Costco. Where are you seeing it cheaper at Costco?
VWestlife did a comprehensive review. I’d avoid this company bigly. I bought a “Wolverine” frame by frame 8mm scanner and it’s way better than what Legacybox provides, and I can sell the scanner when I’m done.
This was probably a good business model 15 years ago, but these days, it’s way cheaper to buy a film scanner and/or find a used reel-to-reel player on eBay and do as many conversions as you want at your leisure.
No pretty shoebox, but you can buy those at the dollar store if you feel the need.
Not only is this service a ripoff, but it’s not even very good, from what I’ve seen. Just get a VCR from Goodwill and a capture card.
Ugh, no. Why do I continue to give this site $5/month?
@t0nyc0tt4m Same. Been VMP since the very beginning and have no idea what I’m getting out of the deal. Not even socks. I haven’t even ever ever ever been able to score an IRK (or BOC). Wish they would send random crap to loyal VMPers. How many of us could there be?
@fondaporn @t0nyc0tt4m
Actually, there’s a lot of you still, or there were last year:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/vmp-roll-call
@Kyeh @t0nyc0tt4m They give away (“sell”) IRKs 100 at a time. Surely they could spare a few hundred random craps for their most loyal customers. (I seriously have no idea how people get 2 & 3 & 4 IRKs. I don’t stalk meh, but I’ve attempted purchase in the first 10 seconds MANY times and never gotten one. Maybe there’s some kind of trick to it.)
If anyone is looking for an alternative service, I can recommend scancafe.com.
Honestly, the DIY folks out there probably have no idea that paying someone else to do this is the only way for some of us to stop procrastinating and get it done.
Sure you can do it cheaper and potentially better yourself, but this deal isn’t a bad one at all.
Plus, it makes a great gift for a tech phobic relative who will trust an “official” company with their mementoes sooner than a son or daughter who means well but takes forever to get around to all those favors they promised.
@brasscupcakes I would agree. The mechanics of scanning hundreds of photos, applying color age corrections based on film brand and age, scratch removal, and doing that consistently for every single scan - and whether you have a photo, a slide, negatives, or 8mm film reels or VCR tapes.
That is the service you’re paying for. There is a time and task where DIY definitely makes sense. This is not one of them. Unfortunately for today’s deal, this one lives up to the site’s ethos and namesake in terms of the quality - if that’s truly what you’re looking for - high resolution archival quality scans to get every bit of information out of what you have.
I could look up how to sew sutures, too. Doesn’t make me want to DIY surgery. Or why go to a restaurant and pay someone else to cook your food. It just slapping some stuff into a pot, apply heat, and presto! Right? Of course not!
If this has value to you, it’s a good deal. If not, and for me, it doesn’t - scancafe offers a much better service, although maybe at a higher price. For me the premium of SC has been well worth it. I’ve had hundreds of photos scanned with them and 30+ reels of films and hundreds of slides - all from my parents who have passed on. They did a spectacular job, and turnaround during peak pandemic was about 3 months. Before that, it was about 2 - to be fair, these were large jobs and the work is time consuming, so the price, time-wise was still worth it.
But for some, this may be “good enough” to get it done at a price they can afford. I won’t begrudge someone that.