If you or your loved ones have old home movies, photos, and film reels lying around, then it’s important to digitize them before they deteriorate, and your memories are lost forever. Several companies can do this for you and create high-quality copies. One of the most popular is LegacyBox, but how do they compare with alternatives?
Capture has digitized memories for over 12 million families, so we understand the industry and what customers like you look for in the best options. That’s why we put together this guide to LegacyBox competitors to help you choose between some of the top options.
Keep reading to learn why considering alternatives to LegacyBox is important and evaluate 4 options including Capture, EverPresent, iMemories, and ScanDigital.
Jump to:
- Why Considering Alternatives is Important
- Top Alternatives to LegacyBox
- Things to Consider When Choosing a Media Transfer Service
- Capture.com's Advantage
Why Considering Alternatives is Important
You want the best for your memories, which not only includes the best quality results for your digital format memories, but also means a reputable service that you can have comfort in choosing. By considering and comparing multiple digitizing services, you can get high-quality results, lower pricing, better protection for your memories, and faster turnaround time.
Additionally, you can avoid some of the worst outcomes that show up in reviews of LegacyBox or other companies. If you just choose the first digitizing company that you see, whether that’s LegacyBox.com or another brand, then you could end up overpaying for poor quality digital conversion. Even worse, the company could lose or damage your old media so that your memories are lost forever.
Just like with any other decision, comparing LegacyBox competitors can help you choose the best company to digitize home movies and photos, so what are the other options available?
Top Alternatives to LegacyBox
These are four of the best alternatives to LegacyBox including their pros and cons. We didn’t include SouthTree or Kodak Digitizing reviews because these services are operated by LegacyBox and offer similar services, quality, security, turnaround time, and more. The four LegacyBox competitors we included are Capture, EverPresent, iMemories, and ScanDigital.
Capture
Capture, formerly known as YesVideo, started in the USA in 1999. Over the last 20 years, we’ve been helping families transfer VHS to digital, convert other videotape formats, digitize film reels, and scan photos, slides, and negatives. We believe that our pricing, quality, and one-of-a-kind features make us the top alternative to LegacyBox.
First, our pricing is generally lower for all analog media formats at $29.99 for the first two hours of each videotape ($29.99 each additional 2 hours or videotape), first 100 feet of film (25 cents for each additional foot), and first 50 photos (50 cents for each additional image). When you look at our results or read Capture reviews, you also see that we are known for delivering premium quality that brings your old films, videotapes, and photos to life.
Second, we offer the first-ever touchless photo album scanning service. That means that we can scan your photos without anyone ever having to touch or risk damaging them. We also use a state-of-the-art tracking and security system for every order that monitors your precious memories every step of the way.
Finally, we are a reputable service and manage partnerships with recognizable brands like Google Photos, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and CVS. While you will now have to find an alternative to Costco film, photo, and digitizing, we also managed their services for many years.
Capture Pros
- Fast turnaround of less than 30 days including shipping
- Multi-million-dollar tracking and security system
- Minor repairs including case replacement and cleaning for videotapes and splicing and scratch reduction for film
- DVD and USB flash drive formats available
- Premium quality with good reviews and over 20 years of expertise
Capture Cons
- No audio cassette to digital file conversion
- No home movie editing or enhancement services
- No Blu-Ray options
EverPresent
EverPresent offers a wide variety of digitization services including photo, slide, and negative scanning, video transfer, film to digital, audio transfer, and even things like vinyl records to CD and digital photo organizing. Compared with LegacyBox, their services are more comprehensive, and they even have 40 drop-off locations in some areas in addition to mail-in service.
EverPresent reviews also indicate that they are fairly reputable with many mentioning great results when they received digital media. However, they don’t provide a clear turnaround time and many reviews suggest that it might take a while before you get your order.
Finally, when it comes to pricing, their videotape pricing is reasonable costing $19.99 per videotape. However, for other formats, their pricing structure is more expensive than some alternatives, including Capture and potentially LegacyBox depending on order size.
EverPresent Pros
- Local drop-off and home pick-up in some areas of CT, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NYC, PA, RI, or VT
- Offer photo organizing, vinyl to CD, and other services that aren’t common with other LegacyBox competitors
- Good pricing for videotapes
EverPresent Cons
- Unclear turnaround time
- Expensive pricing for film and photos
- Mixed reviews
iMemories
iMemories has been around for over 15 years and offers a wide variety of services and with access to their app you can get access to your digital copies in as little as 1-2 weeks. However, it will still take 4 weeks to get your original media back.
Their pricing is higher than some of the other alternatives, especially for film ($29.99 per 50 feet) and photos (99 cents per photo). However, iMemories reviews tend to lean toward the positive with most customers having good experiences.
The complaints that occur most often in their reviews are slower than advertised turnaround time, expensive costs, and even poor-quality results. When you compare with LegacyBox, these are some of the same complaints, but comparing iMemories vs Capture is less similar.
iMemories claims (but sometimes doesn’t deliver) faster turnaround time with app access while Capture boasts more experience, lower prices, and better security since iMemories only offers basic tracking and order status updates.
iMemories Pros
- Faster turnaround with app access
- Generally good reviews
- Over 15 years of experience
iMemories Cons
- Expensive pricing structure
- Similar complaints as LegacyBox
- App access costs extra
- No sophisticated security for your precious memories
ScanDigital
ScanDigital is a company that was founded in 2007 and strives to offer better customer service for their customers. This includes security systems with barcode tracking and e-mail updates throughout the process and a satisfaction guarantee. They also offer minor videotape repairs, film cleaning, and splicing.
Additionally, their turnaround time beats LegacyBox by several weeks, but it still ranges from 3 to 6 weeks. Not only that, but they offer a user-friendly process and pricing that is pretty good when compared with some of the more expensive alternatives.
However, the problems show up when you start looking at ScanDigital reviews because they only have a 3/5 Yelp rating and an awful 1.6 stars on SiteJabber. Negative reviews highlight things like extra, unexpected charges, slow turnaround time, poor quality scanning, and other significant issues.
ScanDigital Pros
- Great customer service
- Satisfaction guarantee
- Minor videotape and film cleaning and repairs
ScanDigital Cons
- Poor reviews indicate slow turnaround time
- Might not be as good quality, especially with photo scanning
- Unexpected costs can get expensive
Things to Consider When Choosing a Media Transfer Service
When you are trying to decide between LegacyBox vs Capture, EverPresent, iMemories, ScanDigital, or another alternative, it’s important that you look at some of the most important factors like pricing, security, and services offered.
Pricing
LegacyBox costs are higher than some of the other digital conversion companies, especially if you want to convert photos to digital or only have a small order of videotapes, audio cassettes, or other analog media.
While pricing itself is important, you should also consider the pricing structure as it relates to your order. For example, LegacyBox starts at 2 videotapes, 2 film reels, or 50 photos, so if you have less than that, then a different pricing structure might suit your needs better.
Quality
LegacyBox has been around for over a decade and many people are satisfied with their quality, but it’s still worthwhile to compare the quality of their results with other brands. One way to do this is by reading LegacyBox reviews and comparing them with reviews of Capture, iMemories, EverPresent, and ScanDigital.
Turnaround Time
Turnaround time is one of the biggest LegacyBox complaints because they advertise a 10 to 12 week turnaround, but many LegacyBox complaints indicate that their order took significantly longer. On the other hand, some alternatives offer a faster turnaround of 4 weeks or less. In fact, Capture delivers your premium digitization order in 30 days or less, including shipping.
Security
While LegacyBox offers barcode tracking to provide status updates as your order moves through their processing facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, other options offer more sophisticated security, monitoring, and tracking systems, like Capture’s industry-leading security system. This ensures that your most precious memories are safe and secure all the way throughout the process.
Services
Make sure that the company you choose can convert the media that you want to digitize. While most transfer services include video transfer for VHS tapes, Betamax, Hi8, Video8, and other videotapes, if you have something different like PAL format VHS tapes or Micro MV, you might want to double check. The same goes for Super 8 film with audio or old photo negatives.
Additionally, you want to consider if they offer digital download, cloud storage, or additional copies onto Blu-ray, DVD, or USB thumb drive if those are things that you consider important. You should also compare the pricing of these add-on services because some, like Capture, include digital downloads free of charge, but others like LegacyBox charge you for that service too.
Capture.com's Advantage
If you want home movie and photo conversion services, then there are plenty of digital media transfer companies to choose from. However, Capture is the best film-to-digital service for several reasons.
Compared with all the other alternatives, our turnaround time is the very best. The only option that claims to have a faster turnaround time is iMemories via their app, but that’s an additional charge and reviews indicate that it takes longer than they claim to finish orders.
Our security system is also a level above all the alternatives because we spent a fortune to protect your fortune of memories. This system tracks your order through every hand and all the way back to your doorstep in less than 30 days.
Not only that, but we are the only company to offer touchless photo album scanning services as well. That means we can scan the images from photo books or scrapbooks without having to risk damaging your oldest photographs in the process.
Finally, your entire order is satisfaction guaranteed. If you aren’t satisfied with the digitization process, we’ll reprocess your entire order for free.
Conclusion
There are many video tape transfer businesses to choose from and many LegacyBox competitors offer lower pricing, better reviews, faster turnaround time, and other benefits. That’s why it’s important to weigh different options to find the service that offers everything you’re looking for.
While we could tell you all day about how Capture is the best with the fastest, most affordable, highest-quality, and best overall services, you should just see what our 12+ million customers say. Click here to read Capture reviews!
