Tag Archives: The Digitize Center

Digitize your Video Tapes, Photos, Film & More to Preserve your Precious Memories Forever

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Over 1,000,000+ Memories Digitized and Counting!

“I’m so happy I got this done and my family absolutely loves seeing it!”

This is something I hear every day from someone who took my recommendation and used The Digitize Center to digitize their memories.

Do you have a box in your basement, or perhaps an entire closet filled with old family photos, films, and video tapes? I know I did, and when I thought about how long it would take me to sort, scan, and digitize everything myself I realized it would take hundreds or even thousands of hours. That’s not even including all the time and money I would have to spend getting the necessary equipment and getting all the digitized copies on my phone and laptop. Who has that kind of time?

Fortunately, there is an easy answer!

The old formats of VHS, camcorder tapes, film and photos will not last forever. These items have a shelf-life and will fade and degrade in time until they are completely faded away. Moreover, since they are all physical keepers of memories, they are prone to disasters such as a flood, fire, loss, or physical damage.

These memories contain the cherished moments of my life and the ones I love. I would never want to lose them or be unable to pass them on.

Well, fortunately I discovered an amazing company called The Digitize Center. They literally changed my life and will do the same for you too!

The Digitize Center converts all your home movies, photos, and film into a digital format so that they can be easily viewed and shared on any device.

Founded by Joe Malacina, The Digitize Center is located in Chicago, IL and has digitized well over 1 MILLION MEMORIES at their state-of-the-art facility.

Yes, that’s over 1 MILLION! And the best part, they have never lost or damaged a single memory. NOT ONE!

What is The Digitize Center?

The Digitize Center is America’s Leader in Digitizing Video Tapes, Photos, Film, and More. They can digitize pretty much everything and are the best in the business at what they do.

They’ve been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, PBS, and Del Webb Magazine. Big companies like Marriott, Salon, and even the US Government uses The Digitize Center for their digitization needs. The Digitize Center is the only company I would trust with my family memories.

How does it work?

The Digitize Center makes it easy for you to get your memories digitized and they do it quickly.

They will ship you a special box made to keep your memories safe, called the Digitize Kit. The box is crush-proof, water-resistant, and has shock-absorbent qualities.

You simply fill the box with all your video tapes, photos, and other memories and send it back to them with the provided return label. They even use a special priority shipping arrangement with UPS to make sure your memories are safe in transit.

Once The Digitize Center receives your memories, they will send you an email letting you know that have received everything and it is safe and sound. Then they get work!

Their expert technicians will digitize everything you send them in to a high-quality digital format, and keep you informed every step of the way with email updates.

When they are finished, you can get your digitized memories sent to via digital download, USB thumb drive, or on playable DVDs. It’s your choice!

You’ll also get all of your originals sent back to you. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.

How it Works – The Process

Their reputation pretty much speaks for itself. There are thousands of verified reviews of The Digitize Center with an average score of 4.8/5. Happy customers, no memories ever lost or damaged, and precious memories preserved. What more could you ask for?

I looked up other companies before deciding on The Digitize Center and what I found made me nervous… Many of these other companies had some bad reviews, especially ones where I read that the company lost their precious memories. These reviews were hard to find, but I did not have to look far. I also did not like that other companies had a lot of hidden fees and surprise charges that customers were complaining about. Fortunately, The Digitize Center has striaght-forward, competitive pricing with no hidden fees or charges. And best of all, their record of never losing or damaging a single memory puts them far above the rest.

What Formats can they Digitize?

The Digitize Center can convert nearly all types of consumer media, including:

  • Video tapes: VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, 8mm, Hi8, Digital8, MiniDV, MicroMV
  • Photos, slides, and negatives
  • 8mm, Super 8, and regular 8 film
  • CDs, DVDs, and memory cards

What I Love About The Digitize Center

  • The Company has the Best Reputation
    They have digitized over 1 million memories and have never lost or damaged a single one! Your memories will be in safe hands.
  • Easy to view and share your digitized memories
    Your digitized memories will be available on all of your devices including your smartphones, computers, tablets, and TVs. You can even get physical copies on a thumb drive or DVD set.
  • No hidden prices or fees
    Their pricing is straight-forward and competitive, and they don’t have hidden fees. They also don’t force you to pay for an app like some other companies do.
  • They label and organize all of your memories for FREE
    All your digitized memories will be organized neatly and named accordingly. If you send in a tape that is labeled Christmas 1999, that digitized file will have the same filename.
  • You will know what the price is upfront
    You will know exactly what the cost is upfront and do not have to worry about being surprised later with a huge bill.
  • All your originals will be returned
    Once everything is digitized, they send you all your originals back.

As Seen On…

The Digitize Center is taking America by storm. Families everywhere are absolutely loving The Digitize Center and they have received thousands of 5 star reviews and are all over social media. I have shared The Digitize Center with all my friends and family and they completely love the experience and the result.

They really do provide the safe, simple, and easy way to preserve your precious memories. Even more, they provide a complete 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, which is really just icing on the cake.

Don’t trust your memories with anyone else besides The Digitize Center. They really are the best option to preserve your precious memories and will not leave you disappointed.

SPECIAL OFFER JUST FOR OUR READERS

The Digitize Center has a SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER going on right now if you order using the link below. You will GET 50% OFF THEIR DIGITIZE KIT, which is all inclusive and pretty much covers your entire order.

YES! I want to Preserve my Precious Memories Now

Choosing the right Digitizing Company – The Digitize Center vs. Legacybox vs. iMemories

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This was a popular request from many of our readers and TechGuru is on the case.

Digitizing your memories can be quite the endeavor. Deciding which memories you want to digitize and who you want to use to digitize them can leave you feeling a bit overwhelmed. Fortunately, I was able to research the big 3 digitizing companies and reflect on my own personal experiences using them to write this guide.

When it comes to digitizing, there are 3 main aspects most people consider when deciding which company to use. Those aspects are: price, quality, and reputation. All 3 companies make it simple to digitize your memories and all 3 follow the mail-in model, where they send you a box to fill up with your memories.

PRICING

Let’s start with price, as for many of you this will be the absolute most important point when deciding on a digitizing company. In general, digitizing your memories is not cheap. However, it can be affordable if you stick with the essentials and not fall into a trap of hidden fees.

The GOOD news, all 3 major digitizing companies pretty much have the same prices. The BAD news, some of the pricing is a little complicated and messy, so I will break it down as simply as I can. All prices in this guide are taken from the date this article was written.

The Digitize Center Pricing

The Digitize Center has the most straight forward pricing. You strictly pay by the number of items you send in to be digitized. Pricing does not include the output choice (Cloud, Thumb Drive, or DVDs), but their output prices are market standard.

2 Items$29.99
10 Items$139.99
20 Items$279.99
40 Items$549.99

The prices above are with their current sale. You can also unlock a discount by entering your email address when entering their site.

Legacybox Pricing

Legacybox pricing is very similar to The Digitize Center where they charge by the number of items you send in. Pricing also does not include the output choice. One thing worth noting about Legacybox is they always seem to have some sort of sale going on, but the percentage off varies each day, which can make figuring out the price somewhat difficult.

2 Items$30.00
10 Items$140.00
20 Items$280.00
40 Items$550.00

It is worth noting that when you order from Legacybox with the cloud as your output, you are by default selecting their back-up service which they charge you a set amount each month depending upon how many items you send in. I am not a fan of a monthly fee just to access your memories.

iMemories Pricing

iMemories pricing is different from both The Digitize Center and Legacybox. They charge you initially to order the box and send you a bill later after you have sent the box back. In other words, you are not going to know up front exactly what you are going to be charged until after you send everything in.

They also charge differently depending on the size of the item you send in. For instance, they charge by the length of the film reel, whereas both The Digitize Center and Legacybox count each film reel as 1 item, regardless of its size.

2 Items$29.98 + $14.99 for box
10 Items$149.90 + $14.99 for box
20 Items$299.80 + $14.99 for box
40 Items$599.60 + $14.99 for box

iMemories also charges $14.99 per every 50 feet of a film reel, and $0.49 per photo, not including the price of the box. Their prices also do not include the price of the output, which is difficult to determine. They do offer digital access for free, however you must use their app to access your memories and to continue using the app past a certain time frame you must pay a monthly fee.

Pricing Winner: TIE between The Digitize Center and Legacybox

The Digitize Center and Legacybox pretty much have the same pricing and it is very competitive. iMemories pricing is just too confusing for my taste and I am uneasy about the potential to rack up a huge bill without knowing up front.

QUALITY

It was not easy trying to determine the quality metrics each company offers. They are not plainly advertised on their websites and trying to get answers through customer service was a complete nightmare from at least one of the companies. Regardless, I was able to scrape what I could from their websites and through some digging.

The Digitize Center Quality

The Digitize Center claims to digitize everything at a very high quality and in the latest formats. From digging through their website and my own technical analysis, I was able to determine the following:

Media TypeQuality
Video TapesSource quality with image enhancement
Film Reels1080p to 4K resolution depending on the type of film
Photos300-600 DPI (restoration optional)
Negatives3000 DPI (restoration optional)
Slides 3000 DPI (restoration optional)
AudioHigh Bitrate MP3 with enhancement

I would consider the quality metrics for The Digitize Center as excellent. The DPI they digitize photos, negatives, and slides is excellent and more than enough for a high quality digital image. The enhancements they apply to videos are essential for having a good quality digital file and their audio quality is also excellent.

Legacybox Quality

It was a little difficult to determine Legacybox’s quality metrics on all different media types, however I could determine their DPIs for images.

Media TypeQuality
Video TapesCould not determine
Film ReelsCould not determine
Photos300 DPI
Negatives2400 DPI
Slides2400 DPI
AudioHigh Bitrate WAV file

It is unfortunate that I could not determine their video quality even after deep-diving into their website. Their photo scanning quality is excellent, and their negative and slide scanning quality is good.

iMemories Quality

iMemories quality was the most difficult to determine as I could not find information about it anywhere on their website. In fact, I could not find anything even related to their photo scanning DPI. For me personally, I do not like when a company does not disclose any of their quality metrics, or at the very least make it easy to find on their website.

Media TypeQuality
Video TapesCould not determine
Film ReelsCould not determine
PhotosCould not determine
NegativesCould not determine
SlidesCould not determine
AudioCould not determine

Due to the fact that I could not determine any of the quality metrics for iMemories, they will not be considered for Quality Winner.

Quality Winner: The Digitize Center

It is clear here that given the above information, The Digitize Center has the edge when it comes to the final quality of the digitized memories. Their stated video, audio, and photo quality are all way above industry standards, and that makes them the clear winner in this comparison.

REPUTATION

All of the big 3 digitizing companies have been around for some time so they have all developed their unique reputations. All 3 companies claim to have digitized over 1 million memories so they all earn a passing grade in experience. Legacybox has been around longer than the other two, and there is no shortage of reviews on the company from their customers. From own research, Legacybox has a good reputation for making the process of digitizing very easy to follow. iMemories has a reputation for having an easy-to-use app that you can download on your smartphone or tablet to view your memories. Lastly, The Digitize Center has a reputation for high-quality digitization and easy viewing and sharing of digitized files.

All 3 companies have thousands of reviews from their customers. When looking at reviews, I like to look at reviews posted on third-party websites to determine what their customers’ experiences were really like. Companies tend to hide the not-so-savory reviews on their main website. So when looking at the reviews of the 3 companies, I would recommend you look at these third-party review sites for each company:

The Digitize Center Reviews: https://judge.me/reviews/the-digitize-center.myshopify.com

Legacybox Reviews: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/legacybox.com

iMemories Reviews: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.imemories.com

REPUTATION WINNER: You Decide.

Check out the reviews and you can make your own determination on who’s reputation you like best.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you are readying a digitization project, I would highly recommend going with one of the big three companies mentioned in this guide. There are smaller companies out there that do digitization, however these companies likely lag behind in the newer technologies available in digitizing. The newer technology used today makes a huge difference in the quality of digitization, which is why I highly recommend going with either The Digitize Center, Legacybox, or iMemories.

Happy digitizing and enjoy those memories!

LegacyBox vs. The Digitize Center – Which one is better?

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A question we are asked on a near daily basis, is which digitization service is better, Legacybox or The Digitize Center? Both companies basically provide the same service, and that is they take your old media such as VHS tapes, Hi8 and other camcorder tapes, photographs, film reels, and more, and they digitize it so you can save the media on your computer, smartphones, and tablets. In this article, we will attempt to explain the differences between the two companies and determine which one is better for your home media digitization needs.

Legacybox can be visited at www.legacybox.com

The Digitize Center can be visited at www.thedigitizecenter.com

Price

As usual, the first thing people look at when comparing the two companies is price. Both Legacybox and The Digitize Center have similar prices, with The Digitize Center coming out slightly ahead. For instance, right now the Legacybox 2 Item box costs $35.99, whereas the same 2 Item Digitize Kit from The Digitize Center costs $24.99. We will give the edge here to The Digitize Center.

We also need to look at the shipping costs of both companies. Both companies seem to have nearly identical shipping costs for all of their products, so we can call this a tie.

Overall Price Winner: The Digitize Center

Product Offerings

Both companies offer to digitize most old media types, including VHS tapes, Camcorder tapes of various types, Film reels, and print photographs. However, The Digitize Center additionally offers to digitize CDs, DVDs, Newspaper Clippings, and Yearbooks. So in this category, we will give the edge to The Digitize Center.

To see a full list of media types The Digitize Center can digitize, visit here.

To see a full list of media types Legacybox can digitize, visit here.

Overall Product Offering Winner: The Digitize Center

Quality

To determine which company provides a better quality digitize service, we had to place orders with both companies using the same exact media types. We sent in 2 VHS tapes, 2 Camcorder Tapes, 25 Photographs, and 1 Film Reel to both Legacybox and The Digitize Center. When we received them back digitized, these were the results.

VHS Tapes

The digitized versions of the VHS tapes came back at the same exact quality. The only difference we noted was that The Digitize Center clipped the end of the video when it ended, whereas the Legacybox did not clip the end of the video, so there was an additional 38 minutes of blank video at the end. The Digitize Center also labeled the digitized VHS media to match what we had written on the actual VHS tapes, which was a nice touch. Legacybox did not do this.

Camcorder Tapes

The digitized versions of our camcorder tapes came out at the same exact quality.

25 Photographs

Here is were we noticed some significant differences between the two companies. When we received the digitized version of the photographs from Legacybox, some of them had what appeared to be roller marks on them. The same effect did not appear on The Digitize Center media. In addition, The Digitize Center offered to “restore” the photos, which was a nice touch we appreciated.

Film Reel

Both companies were similar in the quality of the digitized film reel.

Overall Quality Winner: Tie

Speed of Order Process

This was pretty straight forward. All we did here was see how long it took both companies to complete the same exact order. We used the standard free processing option of both companies. The Legacybox order took a total of 16 days from the day they received our media until the time we received it back in the mail. The Digitize Center order took a total of 13 days for the same exact scenario.

Overall Speed Winner: The Digitize Center

Customer Service and Support

This was a little harder to measure as we did not have any support issues we needed to address with any of the companies. So for this analysis, we analyzed all the verified reviews both companies have received.

Legacybox overall customer reviews: 4.84 / 5.0 Stars

The Digitize Center overall customer Reviews: 4.9 / 5.0 Stars

Scanning through the Legacybox verified reviews, the most common complaints were of failure to digitize certain items, lost packages containing media items, and hidden costs.

Scanning through The Digitize Center verified reviews, the most common complaints were of failure to digitize certain items and longer than expected time to receive items.

It’s difficult to determine from these reviews which company has better customer service, so we will call this one a tie. However, we were taken aback by the number of complaints from Legacybox customers who claimed their media items were lost by the company. Whereas, The Digitize Center claims on their website that they have never lost a single item or package.

Overall Customer Support Winner: Tie

Overall Winner: LegacyBox vs The Digitize Center

Given the information we analyzed between the two companies, we can easily declare The Digitize Center to be the better company to get your home media digitized with. They are the clear winner in terms of price, product offerings, and speed of order. We will continue to monitor both companies to see if anything changes.

Overall Winner: The Digitize Center