FotoBridge Review: Should You Digitize Your Memories With Them?

FotoBidge is an optimized scan fulfillment service with an approach that minimizes handling, eliminates unnecessary steps, and integrates secure shipping and tracking. It’s a one-stop service; whether you have a large photo collection or just some slides, Fotobridge can help preserve them safely and securely so they’re available to be viewed in the future – no matter what happens.

We have seen this approach with other services, but let’s take a more detailed look and determine what makes FotoBridge special.

Which Types of Media Can FotoBridge Digitize?

Looking at the site, we noticed that FotoBridge, as the name suggests, focuses on photo scanning. But besides photos, they also scan and digitize other popular media types.

Here is the list of all media they digitize:

• Video Tapes: VHS, S-VHS, Betamax, Video8, Digital8, Hi8, MiniDV
• Film: 8mm, Super 8, 16mm
• Photos: Sizes from 2″x2.5″ up to 8.5″x12″ 
• Slides: 35mm, 110, and 126 in 2″x2″ mounts
• Negatives: APS, Kodak Advantix, FujiFilm Nexia, and other cartridges containing developed negatives. 
• Special formats:  Negatives 110, 126, 4″x5″ and 2¼ x 2¼

How Does FotoBridge Work?

As with all today’s digitizing services, FotoBridge is no different when it comes to ordering and sending your media.

First off, before you start making an order, check what media type they accept.

With FotoBridge, you make a purchase upfront, but you need to know what type of media you can send and how many you have. Then, after you have gathered and checked your media, you select your package, which represents a number of items, and it can range, for example, from 5 to 10,000 items depending on the format. That means that the package can contain 5 or 10,000 photos depending on your package choice.

Under each media type, you will find the number of items you can digitize:

• Photo Print Scanning packages are up to 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, and 10.000 items
• Slide and Negatives packages are up to 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 10.000 items
• Special Formats packages are up to 5, 10, 20, 50, 100
• Home Movie Films are up to 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, and 10.000 feet
• Video Tape packages are up to 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 items

No matter which package you choose, they all include:

• Discs
• IDF – Intelligent digital finishing, which is their exclusive image enhancement and correction process
• Free return shipping on all packages using the secure shipping

Additionally, with photos, slides, negatives, and special formats, FotoBridge will upload media to DropBox, Google Drive, Flickr, or Smugmug (trial account), so you can easily view, share and download whenever you want. 

We didn’t find many details on what repairs and enhancements they do. As the official website stated, we figured out that only old films and video tapes get additional services like:

• Inspection
• Cleaning
• Standard repairs
• Professional high-quality digital capture
• Opening titles
• Background music
• Enhancements

Free return shipping includes your original media, digitized media, and other selected products.

When you place an order, you will need to print 2 copies of the order confirmation and pack 1 of the copies with the media.

You can ship media by yourself or UPS Ground for an additional $25. With pre-pay shipping, you need to print an inbound shipping label. If you decide to send media yourself, we advise picking a postal carrier with a good tracking system.

Turnaround time is usually 2 to 3, but it might be longer if you have a large number of items.

Digital Copies

Regarding digital copies, FotoBridge has a few options, depending on your media type. The digital copy you get with every order, regardless of which media type you choose, is a DVD. They can transfer other media such as photos, slides, negatives, and special formats to USB and extra DVD copies. Files from old films and videotapes can be transferred to USB, external hard drives from 320GB up to 2TB, and additional DVDs copies.

Pricing

When it comes to price, FotoBridge is more on the expensive side when compared to the more popular choices such as iMemories.

We will mention the base price for one item of every media type, and if you are interested in full prices, you can check our main table with compassion with iMemories.

The media transfer price starts at:

• Photos: $0.27 per piece
• Slide and negative: $0.55 per piece
• Special formats: $1.99 per piece for 110/126, $4.99 for medium, and $6.99 for large format.
• Film: $0.27 per foot
• Videotapes: $25.99 per tape

Note: The starting prices mentioned above are for standard resolutions. So if you want to go with a higher resolution, the transfer prices will be higher.

What Are The Alternatives To FotoBridge?

One of the most popular choices among customers for transferring old media to digital is iMemories. Some of the things that make iMemories the best choice are:

• Simple to make an order
• Offers a safe shipping kit
• Affordable prices
• Free digital download of digitized media with each order (for example, you can pay only digitizing process without additional costs for digital copy)
• Plenty of digital copies to choose from
• Fast turnaround time (2 to 3 weeks)
• Real-time information of each step your media goes through.
• They have their own app, which has access to the iMemories cloud, where you can store all your photos and videos.

What Formats iMemories Convert?

iMemories accepts and transfers most popular media formats such as:

• Videotapes: VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, 8mm, Hi8, Video8, Digital8, MiniDV
• Old Films: 8mm, Super8, and 16mm (with and without sound)
• Photos: photo prints, slides, and negatives
• Digital media: DVDs and MiniDVDs

How Does iMemories Work?

This is the part where services like iMemories stand out from the others. They offer a simple ordering process and secure shipping solution for your media. 

iMemories is known for its SafeShip Kit, which is shipped to you after making an order. It’s a crush-proof box with all essential materials for secure media packing and shipping. But, of course, you can also ship with your box if you don’t want the SafeShip Kit. 

When iMemories receives your media, they will inspect it and send you a free, no-obligation quote. This is a big difference if you compare it with some other services in which you need to count and calculate transfer costs before even making an order, and in the end, total costs end up even higher than planned.

During digitizing, iMemories will enhance your memories to look even better and, if needed, professionally repair or “splice” your broken videotapes and old films without losing footage. All of this is included during the transfer, free of charge.

What Digital Copies iMemories Offers?

Besides including a free digital download of your media, iMemories can also transfer your memories to:

• DVDs
• Blu-ray
• Portable hard drive 1TB
• Flash Drive 
• iMemories Cloud

How Much Does iMemories Charge for Their Services?

iMemories is an affordable digitizing service compared to other companies. Some services have low transfer prices, and they advertise themself as that, but their digital copies or shipping are much more expensive, which is not the case with iMemories.

Now we’re going to talk about the differences in pricing. Let’s say you want to transfer several VHS tapes. FotoBridge, as we said earlier, has packages with a specific number of items per package. So if we take the minimum package of $129.95, which may hold up to 5 tapes, the price per tape is $25.99.

With iMemories, there are no packages, and the price is fixed per tape, which is currently $14.99. Plus, you get a free digital download ready for online sharing with others.

As you can see, there is a big difference in price between these two services, and I didn’t even count the additional cost of choosing a digital copy. Check our main table for a full price comparison of these two services.

Finally, Is FotoBridge a Good Choice?

You will not go wrong by choosing FotoBridge. The service seems like a great choice that supports popular media formats with a good turnaround time. The only downside we found is that they don’t offer any type of shipping kit, and transfer prices for some media seem too high compared to other services. 

Because of that, we recommend iMemories as an excellent alternative with affordable prices for all media types. The second alternative that is also a good choice and worth a look at is ScanMyPhotos because if you plan on scanning photos, you can choose the quality at lower prices.

Overall it’s up to you to decide which service meets your needs and budget. Do not hesitate to look at all the services we have mentioned because each has its advantages that might suit you better.