iDigitize

I try not to do any 3 star reviews because usually I find things to be good or bad, and not teetering in the middle. However, this experience is a bit off and on.
What I like is that they do what they say. I dropped off seven 8 mm tapes to convert to digital form so I could edit the footage, but there aren’t very many options on the form.
Ideally, I wanted to get the footage put on DVD as data, rather than in movie form, but they couldn’t do that, so I had to go back to the drop-​off location and give them an external hard drive. Why not just purchase a hard drive from them, you may ask. Because before they calculated how much data would be extracted from the tapes, they offered a 750gb and 1tb hard drive for upwards of $ 130. I looked online and found the same 1tb hard drive for about $ 65, I understand profits need to be made, but keystoning the retail on a hard drive is a bit much. Turned out I only had about 130gb of data, so purchasing even a 750gb hard drive would have been a royal waste of money.
I also wasn’t really a fan of the pricing structure. I gave a total of 7 tapes, all the same format, but the first two tapes were $ 25 each, then every tape after that was $ 17.95. It’s not like anything different was done with the first two that wasn’t done to the rest, so really each should be $ 17.95, but it is what it is I suppose.
Customer Service: I’m not a fan of is that I can’t actually go shake the hand and speak with who is working with some of my most sentimental possessions. Everything is done behind a curtain. I partially understand why this is, just to avoid a bunch of people in and out of the lab, but it would add a certain sense of trust and personalization if I didn’t have to call and leave a message and hope they get back to me in a reasonable amount of time. Also, I’m not sure what experiences others have had with the automated notification system, but I received an email saying «Congrats your job is done, we’ll send another email letting you know when you can go a pick up your movies from your drop-​off location,» or something to that effect. I waited a day or two to receive that «go pick up your tape» email, until I decided to just get on the phone and call the UPS store location to ask if they were there. Apparently they had been sitting their waiting, and I never was notified.
All in all the system worked, I have my memories digitized, but not without a few hiccups. I recommend, if you’re capable of putting your videos on DVD yourself. Just provide an inexpensive 500gb external hard drive to make it a bit cheaper and easier, especially if you plan on editing the footage as I did. Will I use this service again, probably, but I still just wish I could physically hand them the tapes, shake their hand and look them in the eye so they know who I am and I know who they are.

Overall a great service. My parents’ 20^th wedding anniversary was coming up so I decided to have the VHS turned into a DVD for a gift. However, being this was the only recording of the wedding they owned, I was extremely nervous. While companies like CVS or Walgreens take 3 or so weeks to transfer your media Idigitize only takes a few days, which was a huge plus. The only downside is the customer service. The company promises to send you email updates throughout the process however not only did I never receive these but I never got a response to 2 emails I sent with questions. But overall a good experience. And as far as UPS goes… Absolutely 5 star.

I had a Unilocal voucher and did not include it with my drop-​off, so there was some confusion with invoicing and billing. It took a few days to sort out, and I was on a deadline for the conversions… in the end, they got the work done by the date I requested, the work was well-​labelled and the video quality was terrific. Cost me a bit more than I originally thought, but that was because they had to do a PAL conversion as well.