Has anyone had experience using the LegacyBox service?

[moparedtn]

As keeper of a couple dozen 8mm films from my early childhood from my mother, they'd been sitting in my closet in the same
old box she kept them in for decades - probably decaying in the process while I did nothing with them, other than to keep
them safe.
Recent events have led me on a 2nd wave of "I got shiyat to do before I'm gone", though - and they are one of those,
since there is still one brother and one sister to consider in all this.

Recently, a series of events led me to check out the LegacyBox service for just such a thing. Has anyone else used the service
before?

 

[maxwedgechar]

Legacybox might be OK depending on how much you have. It turns out my mother and I took almost 5,000 feet of 8MM and Super 8 film! Most places want about a dollar a foot to do it. I went online and found the Wolverine people. MovieMaker-PRO
I bought their best one, it was about $400 about 2 years ago. It takes about 20 minutes or so to do a 50 foot reel. It's almost like threading up a projector. The problem I think a lot of people might have is that you need to have a certain amount of dexterity. If you are good doing small work then you should be able to use one. If you have 16MM films the one for that runs $1600 to $3500 the last I looked.

 

[moparedtn]

Thought about trying it myself, quickly dismissed it back some years ago. Visions of spending hours splicing and
fooling with the stuff (and potentially ruining something) coupled with a general lack of interest in it as a "hobby"
took care of that.
These 20 or so reels are all that there is of a large part of us kids' childhoods, so a service offering to do all the
grunt work (including splicing/repairing and such) and producing me a final product I can distribute to my two
siblings is all I'm after - and when presented with a "half off" special price, I went for it (after grilling them on
live chat with all the usual questions).
I just hope it's a wise move. I am genuinely excited at perhaps seeing these films again for the first time in
over 50 years, though.

 

[The Rebel]

Been thinking of doing this as well but the cost is way too much (but I'd spend it on my charger, go figure).
You can get a movie projector for about $100.

 

[moparedtn]

Been thinking of doing this as well but the cost is way too much (but I'd spend it on my charger, go figure).
You can get a movie projector for about $100.

I have mama's original, last checked out about 20 years ago. I have the screen somewhere, too.
Once I know I have a permanent copy of all the films, I might just whip that rascal out and give
it a whirl.

 

[mtcatrider]

I used Legacybox several tears ago after my dad passed, my mom had several reels of family movies and Cindy had lots of small sized videos from an old camera of my step daughters high school choir concerts and stuff. Like you I thought about it for awhile, then they had a sale for after Thanksgiving. All the reels of film fit on a DVD, a dew more for the other stuff. Absolutely loved seeing the movies of my childhood and got surprised by a short video of their wedding. The memories are definitely worth the cost. Not sure about price now. If we want to try the movies now we can since mom gave me the projector and not have to worry if it eats the movies. If ypu want the movies go for it!

 

[maxwedgechar]

If you still have a good VHS tape player, and I do, there is a kit available at Best Buy for transferring tapes directly to your computer. Part of my madness is other person's photographs, negatives, slides and home movies. Then you find out that sex films haven't changed in a hundred years! My 3 "scores" are of an African American family from the early Forties, the man drives a Packard, a series of films from a young man who raced a Formula V car and then a Formula Ford, there's film of A J Foyt pushing his car past his tow car at Trenton, NJ and then walking in Paul Newman and Joann Woodward's entourage at Pocono talking to retired Formula 1 champion Graham Hill and Lotus owner Colin Chapman. But my favorite is the guy and his wife who toured the Western US in 1962. They had what turned out to be a '59 Sport Fury. There's a picture of the wife posing in the desert with car and the Purple Mountain's Majesty in the background. Chrysler Marketing could not have done better! Sorry, I do not have scans of anything right now.