This post is sponsored by Legacybox. Thank you, Legacybox!
When my brother and I were growing up, my parents were great about recording moments. My mom was a fantastic photographer, and my dad had a few different video cameras. Over the last 10 years, I have painstakingly gone through thousands of old photos, scanning and restoring them. I’ve made tremendous progress on the pictures, but I never knew what to do with all of our old video tapes…until now.
I was contacted by Legacybox to see if I’d be interested in trying their service that digitizes home movies and photos. I didn’t need any images digitized, but I immediately thought of all the tapes just sitting in my parents’ closet.
Legacybox sent me a kit with everything I’d need to transfer my tapes. I put barcodes on everything so they’d be identified to me.
After a week of deliberation, I settled on the tapes to convert. I wanted to make sure I did a good mix of things the whole family would enjoy, plus memories that would be precious to us. Plus, with my mom’s birthday coming up on October 24, I wanted to include a few things that would be fun.
I loaded the tapes into the kit, and sent it back to Legacybox to be digitized.
Ready to ship!
After a few weeks, my box with all the original tapes was sent back, along with DVDs copies of each tape AND a thumb drive that also held copies of each video. And you guys, it’s been SO FUN to go through these!
There’s a sweet Super 8 movie of my brother and me searching for eggs on Easter when we were 2.5 years old:
There is also a 3.5 hour tape that has highlights from the year my all-star softball team won the National Championship – INCLUDING SPARKY ANDERSON’S RIDICULOUS SPEECH!!!
And I now have copies of both of my mom’s game show appearances! In 1983 she was on the show Tic Tac Dough:
My dad even got a shout-out in the audience!
And the following year, she was on Wheel of Fortune:
The wheel giveth, and the wheel taketh away.
It’s so weird to see footage of my mom where she’s three years younger than I am now. (The answer to the puzzle was “Wash and Wear,” in case you were wondering.)
I also digitized a trip my family took to Universal Studios when I was 8, a video scavenger hunt we did for my brother’s 16th birthday, one of my voice recitals from when I was 16, and an audio recording of my brother and me singing Christmas songs when we were four. It’s so much fun to share these with Annabel and James. They can’t believe they can hear what we sounded like when we were younger! I’m already sorting the next round of videos to digitize – including some from Mike’s dad!
I HIGHLY recommend Legacybox. They have amazing customer service (you can track your package from start to finish), and clearly take great pride in their work. My biggest regret is not transferring the videos sooner, as some of the video and film quality had degraded. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so I worked out a deal with Legacybox! Click HERE to get your Legacybox! The first 25 people to use the code: SPOHRS at checkout will receive 40% off their order! Offer expires 11/15.
Have fun going back in time!
Katrina says:
How FUN is that!! Your mom on Wheel of Fortune!! What a great memory! I just ordered my LegacyBox ~ thanks for the 40% off. Can’t wait to transfer some of my stuff! I have soooooooooooo many video tapes, it’s unreal. I have two questions: 1) when you gave them voice tapes, what did they do with those? I mean, what did they put the voice on? a blank screen? and 2) with the 16GB thumb drive that you have an option to order, do they put one video onto each thumb drive? so say if I ordered the 10 video transfer option, then I should order 10 thumb drives? (I chose not to get the thumb drives, but maybe for my next order I might)
Heather says:
The voice recording is on a CD and it’s also an audio file on the thumb drive. And no, all of my videos are on one thumb drive!
Jerilynn says:
Heather this is awesome. Love the pics. Had no idea your mom was on a game show! And the Easter pics are super cute. Kyle looks sooooo much like Maddie in that picture. Just beautiful. This is a great service and I appreciate you sharing it.
Bonnie says:
Do you have recommendations on who to use to print film rolls. During my move I found dozens of rolls of film. Who know what is on there.
Heather says:
They do film rolls, too!!
Jennifer says:
Just for info, 40% off at legacybox is not that great a deal. Check out the deals at groupon.com currently. I got the $500 package for $130 using groupon, and those offers are currently still there.
Bianca says:
Sounds great! You look so much like your mother
Anna says:
I bet Annie and James got a huge kick out of seeing your mom on a game show! So fun.
Jessica says:
My parents have been wanting something like this forever so I just snapped up your 40% off code. Thank you!!! Can’t wait to surprise them with the finished product for Christmas. Now I have to practice my ninja like skills so I can sneak all those films, slides and VHS tapes out of their house!
Monica says:
Thank you so much for this! I have been thinking about how to transfer those old VHS films. It will be so nice for me AND my parents who live 1000 miles away to have a digital copy of everything!
Jennifer Mehl says:
Awesome! I can’t believe how much you look like your mother at that age (the Wheel photo!)
Michael Yearsley says:
To clarify, Mrs. Buchanan appeared on the DAYTIME version of “Wheel of Fortune” at the time. The present-day nighttime syndicated version of the show was already in its second season.
Furthermore, a representative from the now-defunct King World productions stated that a majority of the original master tapes of the daytime “Wheel” episodes produced prior to mid-1985 no longer exist, as Merv Griffin Productions (which is also now defunct) had a policy of erasing the original master tapes of the daytime “Wheel” episodes that were originally broadcast prior to that time.
Finally, the original air date of the episode Mrs. Buchanan was on (which was not mentioned on the label of that particular tape in the box) was December 6, 1984. Confirmation of the air date was courtesy of a voice-over promo for NBC’s Thursday night lineup during the closing credits, where the brief descriptions of the “Cosby Show” and “Family Ties” episodes that were to be broadcast that night were mentioned.
Heather says:
Hi Heather. I used this coupon and would like to share my experience here. In short, it was terrible. For my father’s 70th birthday, I had some 40+ year old family movies digitized by Legacybox. When they shipped them back to me (after a six week wait, I might add) they didn’t require a signature upon delivery so FedEx just left the box on my porch where it was promptly stolen. (I live in the middle of San Francisco and my door is street level.) Legacybox doesn’t back up their work – I repeat, THEY DON’T BACK UP THEIR WORK – and their customer service is horrible. They gave me my money back but the promised call from the manager has yet to come. The email inquiry I sent yesterday, prior to finally getting a customer service agent on the phone, has also gone unanswered. Because theses memories are worthless to a thief, I am sure that the only movies I have of myself as a baby and my mother as a young woman will wind up in a landfill somewhere. I can’t get my films back but I can tell you honestly about my awful experience. Save yourself some heartbreak and don’t trust your irreplaceable family memories to this company. They don’t take even the most simple steps to ensure their safety.
Heather says:
OH MY GOD, this is awful! I am so sorry this happened to you and feel so terrible! That’s so unacceptable. I feel sick for you.