Southtree has a rating of 2.7 stars from 376 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Southtree most frequently mention customer service, credit card, and poor quality problems. Southtree ranks 45th among Video Converter sites.
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I had worries about sending irreplaceable family memories off to strangers. Through four separate orders, with a total of over six hundred individual images, my experience with Southtree was excellent. The staff that I dealt with acted friendly and professionally at every contact. I would recommend Southtree without reservation to anyone. If you think this review sounds too good to be true, I don't exaggerate.
I placed my Southtree order on October 7,2023 and was told that it should take 10-12 weeks for my tapes to get digitized. Not only did my order take 5 months, but when I received my digitized videos, two of them were silent and one of them was missing a portion at the beginning. I payed $227 for this and truly expected better for the price. When I contacted Southtree about this, they told me to send those tapes back, but I have no intent to do this as I believe they would take another 5 months to arrive. I plan on getting these tapes digitized somewhere else and I recommend others get their tapes digitized somewhere else as well!
I had worries about sending irreplaceable family memories off to strangers. Through four separate orders, with a total of over six hundred individual images, my experience with Southtree was excellent. The staff that I dealt with acted friendly and professionally at every contact. I would recommend Southtree without reservation to anyone. If you think this review sounds too good to be true, I don't exaggerate.
Their estimate is 10-12 weeks. My order is pushing 20 weeks and the only response I receive to inquiries or complaints is "sorry for your inconvenience." Southtree is not holding up its end of our good-faith agreement.
I have been given reasoning related to high volume and short staff. Here's the problem with that: A company which is truly committed to the customer experience does not pass its inconveniences and problems on to the customer. Southree's challenges are not mine. Customers should not be the ones to make sacrifices for a company's inability to properly staff, adequately hire, or effectively manage workload.
Staffing shortages abound, but good companies step up, exercise basic work ethic, and maintain a positive customer experience. High volume or workload is something for which most companies strive. This is an indicator of business growth. Lack of preparation for growth is not the customer's fault. So, the customer should not bear the resulting burden.
I placed my Southtree order on October 7,2023 and was told that it should take 10-12 weeks for my tapes to get digitized. Not only did my order take 5 months, but when I received my digitized videos, two of them were silent and one of them was missing a portion at the beginning. I payed $227 for this and truly expected better for the price. When I contacted Southtree about this, they told me to send those tapes back, but I have no intent to do this as I believe they would take another 5 months to arrive. I plan on getting these tapes digitized somewhere else and I recommend others get their tapes digitized somewhere else as well!
After 3 months I received the transfer of 4 video cassettes and 4 audio cassettes. There were the following problems with that. They never corrected those and never refunded my money.
1) Two of the MP4 files were IDENTICAL. Since two were identical, they completely missed transferring one of the cassette. Those that were transferred to MP4 had really bad resolution/quality. When I play the original cassettes on my VCR, they have far better quality.
2) I had clearly asked for and paid for 1 DVD per video cassette. They just sent me a thumb drive with MP4 files. No DVDs. They never sent me DVDs despite my asking over and over again.
'Please don't waste your money. They are not cheap. Please stay away from this company.
Tip for consumers:
They completely messed up my order. Very poor quality. Much worse than the original analog media. No refund.
Products used:
Digital transfer of analog video and audio cassettes
Pros - I received my originals back.
Cons - it took months to complete my order. Customer service is terrible, basically non existent. They don't leave the link up long enough to download your pictures. I wouldn't trust them with my memories again.
Products used:
Digitize movies and photos and sent me a link which doesn’t work.
The conversion from analog to digital is good. Since I no longer have a camcorder I am able to view my home movies on my computer. I had everything put on a USB thumb drive so I could transfer to my computer and edit the recordings. They did a nice job considering the age of these Hi8 tapes.
The only setback is how long it takes to get them back. If you need them back faster there is a charge for that. Expensive. Otherwise everything was good.
Count your photos before placing order. Put them in baggies of 25 each. Then you know exactly how many and pay for the right amount. Wait for next sale and place order. Rest is easy. Once sent in, wait months to get them back, with many emails about status updates. But still way better than trying to make time to scan it all yourself :)
I had a great experience using Southtree! They were excellent to work and they they kept me informed every step of the way. Some of my tapes were falling apart and they somehow managed convert them. It has been such a blast watching old Christmas and birthday celebrations when my kids were so very young. Such sweet memories. Along with the thumb drive I got for myself, I got each of my kids a thumb drive made as a Christmas gift so they'll have their old memories forever too. Thanks Southtree!
On August 19,2023 I concluded my research on the available options to FINALLY digitize (2) two valuable VCR Video tapes that I have had since 1992. I chose Southtree and I am ecstatic about my choice. Throughout the process, I was kept apprised of the status via their website's VISUAL TIMELINE, and courteous professional emails from Syngyn. Brett, Zach, Rachel, Dee, and Dawn are the Southtree associates who completed my task of digitizing my memories to a Google Drive Download on September 7th, and my original tapes arrived safe and sound on my doorstep on September 9th. The quality is fantastic and better than I had expected. I know that issues happen, and things go wrong at times, but it is how you handle them and I am convinced that this team would handle any issues professionally and with empathy. Best in my book! Kudos to the team! Thank you!
Tip for consumers:
LOVED THE EXPERIENCE!
Products used:
Digital conversion of VHS tapes
I sent Southtree 95 Hi8 Sony Camcorder tapes for conversion to mp4 files. Their website is slick, but their quality control is horrible and their customer service to correct the problems has been exceedingly viscous. They returned one box of tapes very poorly packaged. I sent twice as many tapes to The Digitize Center where there were no problems with any tapes. I wish I had searched the web for reviews of Southtree before buying. Their reviews on Yelp and elsewhere are very bad. Avoid Southtree.
Products used:
MP4 digital files from Hi8 Sony Camcorder tapes
It took 6 months to receive my items back, but I was in the middle of a move so that was okay to wait. My VHS tapes were in poor condition, so my DVD recordings aren't great. DVD and thumb drives are much smaller to store, and the quality will not continue to deteriorate. My product did come back to me in a double box, so that was great. I continued to get emails from Southtree giving me updates on the materials. I am happy I didn't want my items back for any occasion. Six months is a long time, but it all worked out.
Used Southtree to convert old video camera tapes. I paid for the "digital download" option. I waited months and months for tapes to be converted. When I finally received the email that my download was ready, there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING indicating that the download link would ever expire. Photos attached! I had a baby around this time and forgot to download them right away.
Fast-forward about a year later, I finally got to the bottom of my to-do list and went to download my videos. They were gone. After going back and forth with customer service a number of times, I find out that I can pay $20 for a "Legacybox" subscription, THEN ALSO PAY another $20 for my download link to be resent. I go through this entire charade, am out another $40+, and STILL do not receive a download link. Sidenote---the Legacybox fee is an annual subscription service, so I will then have to go through the legwork of CANCELLING this service once I finally get my files.
Next comes ongoing phone tag with customer service reps as I cannot get a clear answer on how to actually access my files. The amount of time and money I have spent on this is 100% not worth it. Stay far away from this service.
For the record, there is a note on the Southtree website when first choosing the "download link option" for file delivery, stating that the link will be active for "30 days." But, that is never stated again anywhere on any materials I received. Then, the customer service rep I spoke to told me the link is active for "60 days." I honestly would not be angry about the expired link if the expiration time had been CLEARLY STATED in my digital download email.
I finally received my order after months. I converted tapes to CD's. Out of 6 CD's only one has good sound quality. The other are very low in sound. Also, there's no markings on the CD's letting you know the title or what's on them…. I would stay away from this company. There are others out there. After my experience I feel that this company isn't customer based. Very close to stealing. They are not giving what they are selling.
I am still wait on my order and it's been over 6 months. Online order status has stopped updating since march. I have reached out to customer service which tells me 10 more days. I fear Southtree has my irreplaceable family photos. This company is a scam, do not use their service. They will loose your family memories and lie to you about it. This is unacceptable. ****Update, they have completed my order and sent the tapes back to me. Cassandra with customer care is great****
Products used:
Family video digitizing service
Got a thumb drive of 15 VHS tapes back much quicker than expected. That was great. The quality wasn't great but I'm sure that had more to do with the 25-30 year old tapes. It would have been nice if someone would have contacted me to see if I really wanted old television shows mixed in with children's birthdays and Christmas'. They clearly were not intended to be included but we had a few miss marked tapes.
A few years ago (2015) I took all my old movies and tapes and sent them to Southtree to put on disc. When I received back I can't remember if I checked even one-but I am pretty sure I did. Anyhow I packed them -in two different places. One was with all my other transfers which I had done myself and they still work fine. I pulled them out recently and now I can't get even get one to play on my DVD player or on my computer. They all say this file is corrupted or unsupported.
When I finally, finally, got my transfers to DVD the quality was extremely poor. Dark, jumpy, ghost blur imagery, and fuzzy. Not sharp or crisp. Not worth the time it took to wait for their services.
South tree always kept in touch and let me know how my order was coming along…. They asked if it could be delayed because of the Christmas rush and it said yes. Getting my movies back was certainly worth the wait!
Yes, I would recommend Southtree because of their customer service! My movies are so fun to watch after 40 years.
I submitted 40 camcorder video cassettes to Southtree and have watched about 7; the quality of the picture and sound are the same as
They are in the camera playback, no deterioration since 1991, in 32 years. I possibly have 5 0r 6 more cassettes which I will send to them
When I return to where they are located. Their price is the best I could find and in this era of disaster capitalism, they stand far above the many low quality operators.
I used Southtree for a few of my videos. The customer service was great; however, VERY disappointed when I viewed the DVDs. We sometimes had to adjust the tracking on the VCR when we viewed the VHS tapes from 1982. When the videos were copied... the tracking was not adjusted; most of the videos have lines going through them and we are not able to clearly view. Wasted $200... just glad I didn't send all 20 yrs of videos. Sorry, I don't know how to add the DVD below.
* Southtree attempted to help this customer through the Sitejabber Resolution Center, but the customer did not respond
I sent in 10 tapes for transfer on March 8th. It is now June 26th and they say it will be another 6-7 weeks. 5-6 months! This is insane. I sent them in early so we could watch them at our annual family reunion this week with people coming in from all over the country. Now we will be deprived of that experience. I feel like I have been deceived. They need more people dubbing tapes and less people sending out innocuous memos. If you need your transfers done in the foreseeable future go to another company.
Great experience. Packaging going and returning was excellent. Even with return time a little long, I was advised periodically of process. Believe delay was due to their huge backlog/covid.
If they are, I hope they're aware that they dodged a bullet. They don't know how lucky they are. Sad for the unlucky ones like me who trusted the ads and sent in precious photos and videos. A lifetime images AND the thumb drive (can you believe they send them together?) were "lost by UPS." A UPS representative actually told me that they probably fell off the truck. In addition, they supposedly wipe their server clean 30 days after the "send" your package back, without having any idea (or care for that matter) that the package was received. My family is heartbroken, and my only hope here is that I can save other people from doing what we did.
It's been over 4 months since I sent them 4 VHS tapes to be converted into a digital thumb drive.
All I've gotten in return is an email once every month saying that they're working on it. They don't tell you how long the process takes when you submit the order. A local shop can do it in about a week. The "excuse" for taking so long is that it's more of an "art form" than a process… that's a big load of BS… It's not art… It's simply transferring one media file from one format to another. If you don't care and have about 6 to 8 months to spare than you can save a few dollars, but knowing what I know now, I would've just spent a little bit more and had them done locally.
Tip for consumers:
Don’t fall for the cheap price… Something in life are worth a little bit more money
Products used:
VHS to digital thumb drive transfer
I have used Southtree a number of times over a period of several years. In all that time, as their business has grown, they have failed to improve turnaround time (I waited five months this time for my stuff). But they are creative at devising ever more opaque pricing policies and strategies like also operating two purported competitors. It seems the business model is based on one-time customers, which makes sense given the nature of it, but what a cynical way to run things.
Home video transfer from VHS to DVD/digital, photo scanning and cassette tapes to CD/digital. Preserve your recorded moments digitally.
Send in your aging tapes, film, pictures, and audio recordings. You'll receive new DVD or digital copies with your originals, safely and simply.