HI Eric, I found your video very helpful yesterday (being Saturday 14th Jan 2023), when I was using my 8mm and Super 8 movie film scanner for the first time. The movie I scan was an old 8mm home print of the 1936 film The Charge Of The Light Brigade, which I brought off eBay two years ago. I was very happy with the result of the frame-by-frame scanning of this home movie. Because of my success with this device, I have got more old 8mm home movies to scan, in which I shall forward to doing with great enjoyment.
Thank you. You definitely don’t need the manual after watching your video, you made it all very easy to follow. I’ve now almost finished digitising all my mum’s super 8 cine films. It’s been such a trip down memory lane
This was one of the best TH-cam instructional videos that I have seen in a long time. You were very informative deliberate and easy to understand. I found that given the choice, I would chose to use the Film Digitizer as the content that you showed was clearer and cleaner. I wish I had known about this converter before I had Costco digitize about 2 dozen fifty foot reels. Since I just subscribed to your channel, hopefully, I will be able to view more well done videos by you about other topics.. Keep it up.
I have the Wolverine version and was very surprised at the quality of the output! I actually paid costco services to transfer a 8mm film and they did a terrible job. This did a much better job! Great Review!
My friend also send couple of his films to I think it was Walgreens AMD quality was not that good plus he will end up paying almost as much as buying this proyector since he has lot of films to convert just like me. How much Costco charged you?
I can’t thank you enough for this video!!! So easy and now able to convert all my parents’ videos for their surprise 50th Anniversary! Thank you so much!
great to see what this can do - was looking for a "professional" service to scan old reels for me and it ranges from someone re-filming the output onto a wall to people asking to see the footage before quoting - this will be the better option , me doing it myself as have 30 plus from the late 1960's to 70's . thanks for showing that the device actually works!
Я тоже такой приобрёл Magnasonic. Правда, не сразу разобрался в нём, но когда разобрался - понравился, сканирует нормально. Молодцы китайцы - до всего первые додумываются! Я давно мечтал о таком недорогом сканере. Теперь остаётся ждать, пока они начнут делать сканеры для 16-мм. киноплёнки.
People need to realise 1080p is a modern standard, it can only take what is there and make it into that standard. It cannot improve the quality. I have not finished watching your video yet, but in my opinion and experience would say the quality is what is to be expected from home cine film. Very informative video, thanks.
Great review. I bought the larger Wolverine Machine 2 years ago and transferred about 1600 feet of film dating from 1950 to 1975 (8mm and Super8). The machine did break on me and I had to replace it. What broke was the film advance mechanism. It simply would not advance the film anymore. Thank goodness I was within the 30 day return period on Amazon. You're right, the graininess you are seeing with the Wolverine machine is JPG compression digital artifacts which has to do with the quality of the compression ratio used. If they used a faster processor, they could increase the quality of the transfer compression ratio and increase the frame rate at which it moves through the machine. So the graininess is not the film grain. However, the quality of the Wolverine is the best consumer frame by frame transfer machine you can get for the money. It is better than using a video transfer machine like you showed. Anything better than the Wolverine and you'll be paying over a thousand dollars for, so if you want the best quality, it would be better to go with one of the professional services that specialize in this. A major problem I had was keeping the frame centered. So I had to stop the transfer and adjust the frame position frequently, probably due to film shrinkage as I live in a very dry climate.
I bought the same one as on this review, and the same thing happened. It began to skip and wouldn’t advance the film smoothly. This seems to be a weak point with these items.
Film Digitizer wins for me. -No vignetting, no rolling, flickering anomalies, and no double exposure frame interpolation that are all present with the Video Transfer System. Thank you for posting. Very helpful!
Thanks so much for this great video! I just bought the same Movie Digitizer and haven't used it yet. I appreciate all the tips and I know they're going to be very helpful when I start to digitize the kazillion 5" reels from 1954 to 1983 that my father documented our childhoods with. Wish me luck!
@mariametz592 best of luck! If you run into any issues, let us know. There's a wealth of info in the comments but sometimes it's a lot to filter though. Enjoy!
This is awesome. I have boxes of 8mm and super 8mm films from grandparents on both sides. Also have the old film projectors, but have never taken the time to look at them. I see a Winter project coming on. So awesome to see the past come back to life. Those remind me of the big snow storms we used to have in Minnesota -- always remember super high drifts, but then again I was a kid so had a different height perspective. So cool --- thanks for sharing! :)
Projected image is super better than the scanned image, but the problem is the projector lamp. They have a life measured in hours - less than 20 - and are either unavailable or super expensive. Whatever video transfer service he used did a HORRIBLE job.
I just got a Magnasonic Digital converter to scan my stack of 8mm films inherited from my parents. I can't wait to get started. I've watched lots of videos on similar machines and I have to say you really explain things well. Some things others didn't even touch on, like the scanner detecting when it's done and shutting itself off. Thanks for the showing more than a few seconds of the side by side of both methods you used. I have thought about using a similar set up to your video transfer system. But I don't trust the projectors I have to not destroy the film. I can see, literally from your comparison, that it has advantages. But these aren't academy award winning films, and I just want to preserve what I can for now because they're just getting older, like me. 😀 Anyway, thanks again for the great video!
I think you did a fantastic presentation of the film digitizer.. I used to do this in my Photography/Video studio back in the 80s using the film/projector trasfer technique... This takes it to the next level of ease... Don't be so hard on yourself... You did a great job...
Thank you very much!! The projector film transfer method is definitely more challenging! I used an app on my phone to set the frame-rate to match, but as you can see there was still a flicker with that method. I also think the scanner's film tray with the light diffuser helps reduce film scratches. I only wish the scanner had a higher bit rate on the capture. I think that would make it the perfect product.
Nice find! As a kid I watched footage of 8mm recorded by my parents. I think the digitizer did good. Don't forget that the 8mm film never recorded in 1080p and that filmgrain could be seen on your projection screen in those days. Just look at old movies and tv-shows in comparison.
Super8 resolution on the film is somewhere in the 800 to 1000 lines range, slower film is better, ie Kodachrome 25 is slightly higher resolution than Kodachrome 64. Scanning above 1080 is not really useful.
Very well done and helpful. Ordered a Wolverine, and upon opening it, had a printed card inside, warning that if it looked used - return amount would be reduced . Never used it, packed up and ready to go back - without even taking it out of box. Will try this machine, for less ! Think I will clean film first though. Thank you !
Thanks for the perfect review and instruction video. This really helps with the decision to get this digitizer. The Reflecta scanners are absolutely amazing. We already have the RPS 10M for scanning image negatives of which the quality is unbelievably good.
Well, I managed to digitize all of my wife's family home movies from the 3 inch reels, 14 of them. And just finished all 15 of my own family home movies from the 5 inch reels. Took just over one hour 35 minutes for each 5 inch reels. Only real serious complaints I have is that this 'Kedok' machine, maybe all of them, only digitizes in MP4 format. Most DVD players will NOT show MP4 format! We can only watch our newly digitized home movies on the computer. It's okay I guess...can't get bulbs for projects any more. Now what to do with a used Kedok 8mm converter.
Good job on this! Videoing a screen is always the worst option, even if it is projected directly to a chip. There is no way to completely eliminate the flicker; the best I've seen is an occasional, yet annoying wave. Frame by frame is the only way to go, everything else just depends on your budget.
Just discovered these on sale in UK. Great sales pitch and with the films I have I think i will commit. At least if it comes quickly enough plenty of time locked down with the corona virus.
When you post such an opinion, it would be much more valuable for others if you give a detailed explanation. For example: "I liked the even lighting." or "The colors seemed more realistic."
Pretty good! I've digitized 18 small reels on a Wolverine (720P) so far, so I have some notes that may be useful for people using either one: - The Wolverine has a third clip for the film on the right side. Yours may as well. - I love maximizing resolution (I'm a photographer and software developer), but honestly, anything beyond 720P feels like overkill when scanning consumer 8mm stock. - I always use the frame adjust, it allows me to capture as much as possible, including video captured around the sprocket holes. The holes are visible, but I'm not bothered by it, and this results in movies that are closer to the 16:9 framing of modern TVs. (I also figure in the future, it'll be easy to use neural networks to fill in the holes.) - I agree about setting the Sharpness to Low. Sharpening in post gives me a lot more control and fewer MPEG artifacts. - I'm using DaVinci Resolve for video editing, it's free and *really* good. The paid version also has an excellent temporal dust and scratch removal filter. - The Wolverine I'm using (newer firmware?) saves MP4 files at 20fps, so it only needs to be slowed down to 80%. DaVinci Resolve makes this pretty easy, and has an Optical Flow setting to create smoother interpolated frames (I'm saving my final files at 24fps). - For digital capture, it's better to mildly overexpose your source video (just not to the point of clipping highlights). This gives you better information for your post-production grading, noise reduction, etc. I've been pretty happy with the default exposure on most of the reels I've scanned so far.
Thanks for all the great info! I, too, am a software developer. TH-cam and film are more or less my side hustle! Most of my film is 16 fps, so inferring the footage at 16fps in premiere works for a lot and I can export at 15 fps which is close but if I'm embedding at another frame rate, I'll have to see about optical flow or frame blending and how those look. I really appreciate you adding to the discussion! When I posted this there wasn't a lot of detail out there and have been really happy with how this video has performed. For some reason my scanner has issues with the white balance if I over expose. Whites appear yellow. Thanks again!
Wow this is awesome thank you I will look to you for any advice I made I appreciate everything to comment is great because I'm a newbie to this I collect 8 mm super 8 and 16 mm films I also have projectors for all.. but since I couldn't afford the crazy money they want for one of these when I seen it online here in the US on the East Coast I had to have it.. I will look forward to your help I'll be able to email you I hope I'm also on Facebook thank you sir thank you I look forward to any help you can give me doing this with what you have described when transferring films thank you
@@EricCosner that's awesome Eric and preserving films I've top notch whether they be 8 mm super 8 regulator or 16 mm they all need to be preserved these are history I have a lot of home movies and a lot of feature films they need to be preserved and this is my forte I'm doing this preserving
Hi Eric, Thanks for posting this video, it's an excellent comparison test between projecting and scanning! I've just got the Reflecta scanner and yes, it's a shame about the high degree of compression. Pity that output compression couldn't be set before scanning, still the results are better than projecting overall as you've clearly shown. The next step is to edit my footage in FCPX where I can reduce noise, sharpen and crop in slightly too. As in my setup, I set to scan just beyond the whole frame! Cheers from the UK! PS I'll probably do a 'How To' on my channel at some point to!
I received my machine last week. I spent this last week transferring my grandparents 22 five minute reels I've had for about 20 years. Results were great. Each reel was 2 minutes taking 30 minutes each reel. I used can of air to clean out track. It did get dusty. Then transferred to laptop. All 22 reels took up about 4.5 GB. Again, I'm very happy with my $300 "knockoff" Wolverine. And thank you for the orientation.
Sounds like a great experience! Did you experience any freezing with the reel on the scanner? Mine keeps freezing up and I keep trying to troubleshoot what I'm doing wrong.
Bro... You literally answered every single question I had about this process in this video… The difference between 8 MM & super 8, The process for digitizing, the frame rate or percentage rate to default, how different it looks from digitizer to projector source, the difference between the sprockets, everything dude. Thank you so much
Thanks bro! Very much appreciate the feedback! It took me over a week to make this video. I wanted to cover as much as possible. Believe it or not you can even zoom out and film the sprocket holes which I learned later. Thanks again!!
@@anubiscomplex showing the sprocket holes is useful for eliminating the vertical movement the scanner's very basic film transport produces. You can use (professional and expensive) video editing software to use the sprocket holes as a reference for eliminating that shakiness, then output a very steady video with just the image frames. It's possible to reference image elements too, and eliminate most of the camera shake that's normal with the small handheld home movie cameras used.
glorious! I was saying to JOA that this is wonderful to see what someone else has experienced to help you to make decisions - God bless & thank you! 🇨🇱🇺🇸
Hello! I recently acquired a Super 8 Camera for the purpose of B-roll in my Vlogs - I know this video is almost 3 years old, but does this still hold up? This is one of the few videos I've seen on TH-cam reviewing this at-home digitizer
I just ordered mine and looking forward to using it. Just wondering if the memory card needs to be formatted? Does the option come up on the screen to do that?
It does come with an option to format the card. I don’t remember if I did the format when I unboxed it, but it wouldn’t hurt. It’s on the 3rd page of the menu and it will ask you to confirm before formatting.
Hey thanks for the video. I transferred about 75 of my parent's Super 8 films using that very same Ambico system and a camcorder in 1993. Seeing the flicker and the vignetting brought back memories of that. Planning on redoing it soon with a more modern method.
One thing about the video transfer system is it is very fast compared to scanning frame by frame. I think my projectors bulb was a little harsh and that's why it showed so many scratches. The frame-by-frame scanner does okay, but the video codec sometimes produces artifacts, especially if there's a lot of film grain.
Nice job 👍 was looking into what kind of quality, you can get from that unit. Side by side of the 2 options, very helpful. The other option was to use a pro service. Now I know that the machine at a service should be of a much higher caliber, but at close to $90 a reel, it works out much better for my bank account to buy one of these units!
Just bought one of these and am eager to try it out. Did you try redoing this video with the exposure set to normal or +1? Perhaps the digitizer would be a little bit brighter if you did.
Watched to compare to my Wolverine. Looks very similar, but the menus have some differences. Good idea on slightly underexposing. It's easier to add gain, but when the levels are blown out, that can't be fixed. Nice job.
@@scottbaker4534 My Wolverine outputs 720p. They also sell a Pro unit that outputs 1080p. What specifically is "horrible" about the film scanner featured in this vid?
@@ThriftyAV Easily answered. The Wolverine's main problem lies in the mp4 encoding process, which seems to lean heavily on "removing scratches" but leaves behind so many digital artifacts (tiny rectangular shapes that obscure details) that it leaves a resulting image which resembles, as one comment I read says, "Frosted glass." I was going to say "shower door glass" but not all shower doors have obscured glass. Perhaps your screen is not HD, or your vision has deteriorated due to some health condition. I certainly don't mean to insult you, in either case, I assure you, the quality is rather poor, even if you don't see it. One of my fondest memories of my late grandfather was when we stayed up late into the night talking and he suggested we watch one of his favorite late night shows, The Howard Stern Show. In this particular episode, Howard's guest was an exotic dancer. At one point, she performed for the audience, wearing rather large "pasties" over two particularly large identical regions of her upper anatomy. My grandfather laughed gleefully, looked over at me and said, "Isn't that terrific!? They can show a beautiful nude woman on TV now!" My grandfather, I should stress, had respect for women. He merely believed the human body is beautiful and is nothing to be ashamed of. What I realized is that my grandfather's poor eyesight meant that he didn't see the pasties. They blurred in his vision so that the woman's body appeared to have no covering anywhere. I didn't have the heart to clarify for him that he was not seeing what he thought he saw. My eyes, thank goodness, are still quite sharp. What I can praise about Wolverine is the evenness of the light, which potentially makes for not merely crisp, fine details, but eliminates a great amount of both overexposed "bleaching" and underexposed "blackout" regions that would otherwise not just obscure details, but eliminate them altogether. But in what I would bet money was their hamfisted attempts both to reduce scratches and reduce file size, the makers of the probably re-branded Wolverine transfer unit have made an unforced fatal error, easily corrected with better software. I'd recommend the makers of the unit talk to the makers of HandBrake and some computer science grads looking to make a name for themselves who can improve the quality of the output without much, if any, file size increase.
I mean your starting off with imperfection so it is what it is. Just having the film digitized is a big win. I had mine professionally transferred at a camera shop and he supplied uncompressed video with high res. It still looked bad - it’s just the source. The digitizer does a fairly nice job.
Hey Eric, thank you so much for taking the time and effort to product this excellent video review of the 8mm (Super 8MM) analog to digital converter. I'm in the market to purchase a device to convert 1960s videos, and your comparison of the "Complete Video Transfer System" with the "8mm and Super 8 Film Scanner Pro" was very instructive. Each device has its own positives and negatives. Your video has given me much needed information to consider. Keep up the good work.
Excellent Vid demoing the scanner! Certainly the footage looks better than copying from a screen. My only concern, is that the recorded data is so compressed! Pity there's no way of having an option to lessen the compression and resulting file size? Anyway, cheers from the UK!
Excellent video Eric,although I have no films to transfer it was interesting to watch and this could help many people that want to do something like this,for me I think the transfer system did a much better job,the colours look much more natural IMO
Clearly Film digitizer is winner, there is no question about it. Film digitizer scan (take pictures) directly from each frame, same as what film studios do for transport movies to DVD or Blu-ray for selling in the market, but Video transfer system use cheap conventional method, recording directly from projector screen you will get issues like brighter in the middle and darker and shades on the edges and specially on corners, blinking frames , color inaccuracy.
Thank you for posting this. After doing a lot of research I finally decided to buy one of these off of eBay. It's a used (or refurbished) machine from a fairly large eBay seller. The model that I got is Branded Hammacher Schlemmer but after some research and close examination it looks like every model that is under $500.00 is manufactured by the same people. The Wolverine Pro model appears to have an attachment that will allow for even larger reels but I don't come across much of that kind of thing so I should be fine. I also got it for at least $100.00 less than the cheapest working Wolverine that I could find. Anyway, the one that I got that it doesn't come with the book so I looked around and luckily found your video. This should be enough to help get me started. Nice work!
John, thank you! It does seem like there's a lot of very similar film scanners out there! I have found a manual or two online but they aren't very detailed. It almost seems like the folks who wrote the manual didn't ever use the device, so I think first hand experience probably works better. Thanks very much for the feedback! Have a good one!
Eric Cosner update: Mine came in and I am pretty happy with it. I have some family reels that have been sitting around and a few flea market finds that I have wanted to check out. I honestly just wanted to get eyes on this stuff and figured that these would be decent quality. It has gone far past my expectation. Not sure if it’s broadcast quality but these are enough for anyone to work with. If a lot of extra post became necessary - I’d probably send out for better scans at a later date but this is a great little tool for anyone who just wants to get their old films digital. I’ve scanned around 25 reels so far. That would have easily cost me between $350 and $700. Depending on the process- projection costs less but a professional scanning system might cost upwards of $30 for a 50’ roll. Right now I am in for around $250 and I have at least 25 more reels in storage. Thanks again!
Hammacher Schlemmer is basically another version of Sharper Image. They don't make anything, just slap their brand name on it and jack up the price. Also like Trump steaks or Trump wine. It's a con job. Hammacher Schlemmer also sold a high quality Reflecta scanner for about $1800, which they couldn't sell at the price. They dropped it to $1600, to $1200, to $900. It's still too much for a hobbyist which is why they sell so few of them. Greed is the enemy of industry. They fail to understand that selling in higher volumes increases profit better than raising the price and selling fewer units.
@@scottbaker4534 Thanks. Yes. This machine was just fine for my purposes. I was originally going to just scan my stuff and pass it along but I decided to hold onto it just incase I come across another box or if I can offer the service to friends. We are all in our late 40's now and everyone seems to be finding these in their families attics.
I went ahead and bought one of these off Amazon this morning. I have a BUNCH of old 8mm tapes i need to get digitized but i'm uncertain as to the fragility of them. Using a standard film projector to capture them was not an option as I was looking for something like this that would just capture them frame by frame to lower the chances of the film breaking. I have a splicer and such so if it happens i'm ready but i just wanted to lessen the chances of it happening by getting this device. Thank you for making this video, I feel much better about buying it now and I look forward to digitizing all these rolls.
The concept is great, the execution in this machine is horrid. There should be sharpness enough to clearly see grain with 5 mpix sensor and there should be no compression artifacts from the frame by frame capture.
Andrew, I think in theory it could work. The scanner's white balance and exposure drifts a bit so I'm not sure what that might do with negatives. I wish I had a piece of negative to test out and see!
I saw a video showing to NOT zoom with the Wolverine and do the crop later in post editing. This makes a huge difference. The video with the digital zoom of the converter is riddled with compression artifacts. The video with no zoom is virtually artifact free.
great job in showing machine setup and results. I've got a box full of old 8mm reels and was thinking of using a service but cost was 2x this machine. I think i'll get this unit (the film digitizer).
Thank you! I worried that when sending them away they could get lost. The machine allowed me to get all mine backed up, and in many ways, even though the quality might not be perfect, I think the quality is good enough for most 8mm. Some of my films were really faded, so paying for those to be professionally done didn't make sense. Thanks again!
Thanks for sharing this. Sadly I lost my super 8 films and the project some time ago from a foreclosure of a storage facility that the stuff was in. This would have been great.
Hi Eric, thanks for the video. I have used the wolverine but today stop working the lamp. The whole mechanism works well, advance film without a problem. You know if there's a way to change the lamp? Saludos from Chile!
Great instructive video. Personally I prefer the VTS as it brighter whilst the FD looks a bit dark although the frames are better and less dirt spots. . . but it looks too dark? Anyway a great video to give some ideas. Thanks.
I have two questions. How much time in either hours or minutes will the 32gb memory card hold? And how do you know when you are getting close to the end of the 32gb 's ability to hold any more film (or information)? Thanks. Enjoyed the presentation. Very informative.
about 75MB per minute (1200 frames at the fixed 20fps MP4 frame rate of the video saved). I don't know how much if any compression is applied. I have never filled a card so no clue what happens with a full one, I move them to my PC after every reel scan to review and name the videos. A fairly full 7 inch reel was 1.7GB.
I just purchased this that you have, same box and all. I have a couple minor issues, but all in all, it does as advertised. The fast forward for rewinding is not great, have to help it. After watching your video again, could I just use the USB to my computer, transfer my home movies to my computer, then transfer them to DVD? The Kedok comes with a '32 gb' SD card, but after using it, it only holds 1.1 gb' only.
Thanks for a great tutorial. It stands out from others I have seem because you don't bother with annoying sfx or background music. You just get straight to the point and that's what I want. And as a consequence I've just ordered a converter via Amazon. But right at the end of your vid you recommended using a splicer. Do you have one you can recommend as there seems to be loads out there. Thanks again
Hello, great video, I'm curious about the two different scanners (720 and 1080) if one would capture faster than the the other. They probably take the pictures at about the same rate I'm guessing, probably about two pics/sec? But when the capture is done, the machine must take some time to render I would think. So, just wondering if the 720 would take less time? Thanks
Hello and thanks for excellent question! As far as rendering, the unit will be finished the second that you hit stop, or it detects the end of the reel. It essentially writes a file on the SD card in real time each time you start and stop. The playback of most machines is set to 30 fps which is too fast so you almost always have to edit it on a computer to adjust the frame rate. That frame rate is encoded in the mp4 file. So depending on your computer, if you have to edit the footage to slow it down or make other adjustments then 720p would be less taxing on the computer. I have another machine made by Kodak that I never finished reviewing and that one actually outputs the file at a similar frame rate. I think it was 15 fps. The issue with that Kodak machine is it always jams the film. I kinda gave up on it during the reviews. Hope this is helpful! Thanks again!
@@EricCosner thanks for the information. I've been looking to get one of these soon. I use Pinnacle studio for editing, not sure if I can change frame rate like in premiere, but I know I can definitely slow it down to 60% for super 8. Thanks
You might try adjusting the shutter speed on your camera when doing a real time transfer. I used to transfer with a variable speed projector. I find at about 20 f/s you get total flicker free transfers. The digitizer makes the people look like you're looking through a frosted glass. It's nice that there's less scratches, but the picture quality is not there. Next time try projecting it on a screen and put it beside a flat screen TV and you'll see how much better the raw projection is in comparison to the digital transfer.
Thanks for the feedback. I used an app called FiLMiC pro that allowed me to select the frame rate. I tried quite a few of them, but it seems like my projector's motor doesn't run at a perfect speed. I may try 20 fps again just to see. I think the issue with quality on the digitizer is the software/codec and the camera just doesn't have the dynamic range to properly get at the shadows and highlights. Thanks again!
I agree AND disagree with you, Simon. I agree this unit is junk and produces "frosted glass" images. But frame-by-frame digitization, when done with the right sensor and software combination, is far superior to telecine, unless you project into a theater-sized screen and have super high-speed digital video camera positioned at a near zero angle from the projector. The ultimate telecine setup would be a digital camera synced to the projector some how, so that each frame is captured only once. Again. though, an HD scan of each frame, combined with software which does not destroy the scan image when compiling the video makes for the best quality.
@@scottbaker4534 I agree, the right sensor and software combination would be superior, but we are talking about this particular scanner and off the wall projection comparison.
Hi Mister... I want to collect "old school" movies. 8mm, 16mm etc ... But I have no place to install a projector. Don't these have a player that works with hdmi? How do I solve this job?
Does the super 8 film still need to be developed to be able to insert it into the digital scanner or can I pop the reel straight out of the camera and scan it using this machine? Someone pls help honestly stuck!!!!
You mentioned in your comparison the the video transfer system was sharper and brighter in the shasows, don't you think that's because you stopped down the digitizer .5 stops and the sharpness down to low on the digitizer?
I think it work great. Video transfer is a bit sharpener but colors are better from digitizer. I would like see this film directly from projector for see difference of quality.
Interesting! I have the Reflecta version which is pretty much the same machine, though the menu options are slightly different. I am digitising my father's old Standard 8 films which date from around 1961 to 1977. It's all Kodachrome, as I suspect most home cine film from that time is. I haven't got Premiere Pro, but there is another way of changing the frame rate using MyMP4boxGUI. You basically have to de-mux the mp4, then remux it and specify the frame rate. It's a faff, but it does work. As I expect to be viewing the films on a PC with 60Hz or 75Hz refresh, I actually change the frame rate to 15 fps. This means it's about 7% slow - pretty unnoticeable IMO. I also reduce the resolution to half size, i.e. 720 x 540. Standard 8 frames are tiny, so it's no surprise that the graininess shows at 1440 x 1080
Update I have designed and printed parts and made an extension rig, to take 7" reels and still run the scanner as it was intended. Even to the rewind process, I have 63 years worth of cine film reels to scan, Even had to print a 7" take-up reel as the only one I have has the larger sprocket hole. All sorted now, this is a fantastic product . Thanks for the video.
Just got the same exact machine, but as soon we get to the “Do Not Move The film” screen, it reads “CardProtected”. Could it be a SD card issue? It is unlocked. Hmm.
Thanks for making this video. Good to know that there is equipment like this out there. I noticed that you did not thread the film properly as indicated by the diagram on the video transcriber. Secondly Super 8 or 8 mm video at best has a resolution of maybe 480p. 35 mm gives about 4K, 16 mm film gives a resolution of about 1080p. So no way can you expect 8 mm to give you anything more than standard-definition or maybe 480p or super VHS at the most. I already have had a scan done of 8 mm to DVD and I was wondering if it would be worth it to redo it and to 480p DVD. Your video as telling me that it is probably not worth going through all the trouble. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for the video Eric. I have about 20-30 rolls of 8mm I can’t wait to process. I think the digitizer did great. What’s the better software to use for editing and such? Do we need the Adobe software or does Apple have something free already?
Film of a snow scene is probably less sharp than in a non-snow scene with better contrast. As I recall Super 8 image was sharper and steadier than regular 8mm. I tried a transfer system, toy like poor results.
That makes sense. The snow likely softened the light and should have produced less grain. Recently I've been playing with this new unit the Kodak Reelz. It's a little bit better than this film scanner, but the film jams at the splices. Hoping to release that video as soon as I can find a work around for the jamming issue.
Eric, when the machine saves the video it saves it at a default 30 frames per second. I know you can modify that to view on your computer screen to the correct 16 or 18 frames per second, but then how do you save it to a DVD at the correct FPS?
For exporting, I think the best approach would be to set your timeline to match your export media. If you are in an NTFS country, then 30 fps for dvd and if you are in a PAL country then 25 fps for DVD. This assumes, of course, you can interpret the input fps as I did. If not, you may have to make your timeline 16 or 18 fps. Regardless, when you export, I would export to the format & fps the dvd prefers. The video I shot was exported at 23.976 because I almost always use that fps for my youtube videos. It's possible a frame will be dropped or blended, depending on how the video software translates the frame-rates. At least that's how I would approach it. Thanks for the question!
Is this one of the digitizer a that has a limit to how many small or large reels worth of film it will digitize? I recall one unit on the market limits the number of transfers one can do which I feel is cheating the buyer out of their money. Another question is that since most camera shops have long since dissapeared, where does one find the splicing tape? I already have a splicer however there are no longer any useable tapes with it. A bit of trivia, Kodak STILL makes Super 8 movie film, however it is by special order only. It seems there are a lot of universities still offering film making classes for this unique art form which was once the most prevalent form of capturing those precious memories in life.
On Amazon, there is the Wolverine PRO selling for $399 and a Eyesen PRO selling for $299. Both have the extended arm for larger reels. The Wolverine has a black front and the Eyesen has a silver front. (Another TH-cam video said their Eyesen $299 said "Wolverine" when it was turned on.) Are these the same machines, but packaged differently? What is the difference?
Thanks for the excellent review. I just ordered the Wolverine Pro version and am curious about file storage size. Most of the reels I'll be transferring are 3" super 8. How many megapixels do this size reel requires on the SD card? Any thoughts? Thanks
Hey sorry it took me so long to get back to you! The 5" reels on this unit come out to about 1.0 GB per transfer. I would venture to say a 3" reel would be about half of that. I'm using an 8 GB card and it works well. It's nice not having to clean it off every time! Thanks!
I have one of these machines and It's stuck in the "advance" mode. Can't stop it or bring it back to the main menue. Even powering down an unplugging won't force it out, it just starts advancing again once powered back on. Any idea on how to force a reset?
Sorry to hear that your machine seems to be performing incorrectly. I know it usually advances two frames when first powered on, which makes me wonder if it is that feature that's actually stuck. This seems to be some sort of diagnostic that it performs when first powered up. If you haven't already done so, remove any memory card, completely removing the film and unplug the power supply for a minute or so before turning it back on. Then power it back on without the memory card and see if that makes any different. Also, do you see anything on the screen when it is advancing? There's a feature where if it sees an all white frame, it shuts down. I'll take a look at mine when I get a chance, and see if I can come up with any other ideas.
HI Eric,
I found your video very helpful yesterday (being Saturday 14th Jan 2023), when I was using my 8mm and Super 8 movie film scanner for the first time. The movie I scan was an old 8mm home print of the 1936 film The Charge Of The Light Brigade, which I brought off eBay two years ago. I was very happy with the result of the frame-by-frame scanning of this home movie. Because of my success with this device, I have got more old 8mm home movies to scan, in which I shall forward to doing with great enjoyment.
Thank you. You definitely don’t need the manual after watching your video, you made it all very easy to follow. I’ve now almost finished digitising all my mum’s super 8 cine films. It’s been such a trip down memory lane
This was one of the best TH-cam instructional videos that I have seen in a long time. You were very informative deliberate and easy to understand. I found that given the choice, I would chose to use the Film Digitizer as the content that you showed was clearer and cleaner. I wish I had known about this converter before I had Costco digitize about 2 dozen fifty foot reels. Since I just subscribed to your channel, hopefully, I will be able to view more well done videos by you about other topics.. Keep it up.
Awesome demo. Have about a hundred of my late father’s movie reels i would like to digitise so watching your demo was neat. Thanks again.
I have the Wolverine version and was very surprised at the quality of the output! I actually paid costco services to transfer a 8mm film and they did a terrible job. This did a much better job! Great Review!
My friend also send couple of his films to I think it was Walgreens AMD quality was not that good plus he will end up paying almost as much as buying this proyector since he has lot of films to convert just like me. How much Costco charged you?
Terrific job. I just bought one and can't wait to upload my families videos.
How did it go? Are you happy witht the results?
I can’t thank you enough for this video!!! So easy and now able to convert all my parents’ videos for their surprise 50th Anniversary! Thank you so much!
Super happy to hear this!! Thank you for kind feedback! Happy Anniversary, mom and dad! 💚
@@EricCosner I’ll tell them 😁
great to see what this can do - was looking for a "professional" service to scan old reels for me and it ranges from someone re-filming the output onto a wall to people asking to see the footage before quoting - this will be the better option , me doing it myself as have 30 plus from the late 1960's to 70's . thanks for showing that the device actually works!
great to hear! I was always afraid to send the reels away since they are irreplaceable, and I like that I can do it myself. Thanks for the comment!
@@EricCosner: Can I hear any audio
Я тоже такой приобрёл Magnasonic. Правда, не сразу разобрался в нём, но когда разобрался - понравился, сканирует нормально. Молодцы китайцы - до всего первые додумываются! Я давно мечтал о таком недорогом сканере. Теперь остаётся ждать, пока они начнут делать сканеры для 16-мм. киноплёнки.
People need to realise 1080p is a modern standard, it can only take what is there and make it into that standard. It cannot improve the quality. I have not finished watching your video yet, but in my opinion and experience would say the quality is what is to be expected from home cine film. Very informative video, thanks.
Great review. I bought the larger Wolverine Machine 2 years ago and transferred about 1600 feet of film dating from 1950 to 1975 (8mm and Super8). The machine did break on me and I had to replace it. What broke was the film advance mechanism. It simply would not advance the film anymore. Thank goodness I was within the 30 day return period on Amazon. You're right, the graininess you are seeing with the Wolverine machine is JPG compression digital artifacts which has to do with the quality of the compression ratio used. If they used a faster processor, they could increase the quality of the transfer compression ratio and increase the frame rate at which it moves through the machine. So the graininess is not the film grain. However, the quality of the Wolverine is the best consumer frame by frame transfer machine you can get for the money. It is better than using a video transfer machine like you showed. Anything better than the Wolverine and you'll be paying over a thousand dollars for, so if you want the best quality, it would be better to go with one of the professional services that specialize in this. A major problem I had was keeping the frame centered. So I had to stop the transfer and adjust the frame position frequently, probably due to film shrinkage as I live in a very dry climate.
I bought the same one as on this review, and the same thing happened. It began to skip and wouldn’t advance the film smoothly. This seems to be a weak point with these items.
we have 12 months warranty here in Australia . Thats bad 30 days only
Film Digitizer wins for me. -No vignetting, no rolling, flickering anomalies, and no double exposure frame interpolation that are all present with the Video Transfer System. Thank you for posting. Very helpful!
Thanks so much for this great video! I just bought the same Movie Digitizer and haven't used it yet. I appreciate all the tips and I know they're going to be very helpful when I start to digitize the kazillion 5" reels from 1954 to 1983 that my father documented our childhoods with. Wish me luck!
@mariametz592 best of luck! If you run into any issues, let us know. There's a wealth of info in the comments but sometimes it's a lot to filter though. Enjoy!
I bought mine the guy used it once I paid $125 .. I like your video thank you for posting a great video
Wow that’s a really good deal! Thank you for feedback. Very much appreciated!
This is awesome. I have boxes of 8mm and super 8mm films from grandparents on both sides. Also have the old film projectors, but have never taken the time to look at them. I see a Winter project coming on. So awesome to see the past come back to life. Those remind me of the big snow storms we used to have in Minnesota -- always remember super high drifts, but then again I was a kid so had a different height perspective. So cool --- thanks for sharing! :)
Projected image is super better than the scanned image, but the problem is the projector lamp. They have a life measured in hours - less than 20 - and are either unavailable or super expensive. Whatever video transfer service he used did a HORRIBLE job.
Nicely done, Eric, and thanks. I have about 32+ overloaded 7" reels and it's time to digitize. Your video was most helpful.
I just got a Magnasonic Digital converter to scan my stack of 8mm films inherited from my parents. I can't wait to get started. I've watched lots of videos on similar machines and I have to say you really explain things well. Some things others didn't even touch on, like the scanner detecting when it's done and shutting itself off. Thanks for the showing more than a few seconds of the side by side of both methods you used. I have thought about using a similar set up to your video transfer system. But I don't trust the projectors I have to not destroy the film. I can see, literally from your comparison, that it has advantages. But these aren't academy award winning films, and I just want to preserve what I can for now because they're just getting older, like me. 😀 Anyway, thanks again for the great video!
This review will save time when shopping for TH-cam reviews on this item. Clear and concise plus excellent info for editing. Thank you sir.
I think you did a fantastic presentation of the film digitizer.. I used to do this in my Photography/Video studio back in the 80s using the film/projector trasfer technique... This takes it to the next level of ease... Don't be so hard on yourself... You did a great job...
Thank you very much!! The projector film transfer method is definitely more challenging! I used an app on my phone to set the frame-rate to match, but as you can see there was still a flicker with that method. I also think the scanner's film tray with the light diffuser helps reduce film scratches. I only wish the scanner had a higher bit rate on the capture. I think that would make it the perfect product.
Nice find! As a kid I watched footage of 8mm recorded by my parents.
I think the digitizer did good. Don't forget that the 8mm film never recorded in 1080p and that filmgrain could be seen on your projection screen in those days.
Just look at old movies and tv-shows in comparison.
Super8 resolution on the film is somewhere in the 800 to 1000 lines range, slower film is better, ie Kodachrome 25 is slightly higher resolution than Kodachrome 64. Scanning above 1080 is not really useful.
Thank you didn’t know were to start and you gave me a lot knowledge of were to start.
Very well done and helpful. Ordered a Wolverine, and upon opening it, had a printed card inside, warning that if it looked used - return amount would be reduced . Never used it, packed up and ready to go back - without even taking it out of box. Will try this machine, for less ! Think I will clean film first though. Thank you !
Thanks for the perfect review and instruction video. This really helps with the decision to get this digitizer. The Reflecta scanners are absolutely amazing. We already have the RPS 10M for scanning image negatives of which the quality is unbelievably good.
Well, I managed to digitize all of my wife's family home movies from the 3 inch reels, 14 of them. And just finished all 15 of my own family home movies from the 5 inch reels. Took just over one hour 35 minutes for each 5 inch reels. Only real serious complaints I have is that this 'Kedok' machine, maybe all of them, only digitizes in MP4 format. Most DVD players will NOT show MP4 format! We can only watch our newly digitized home movies on the computer. It's okay I guess...can't get bulbs for projects any more. Now what to do with a used Kedok 8mm converter.
Good job on this! Videoing a screen is always the worst option, even if it is projected directly to a chip. There is no way to completely eliminate the flicker; the best I've seen is an occasional, yet annoying wave. Frame by frame is the only way to go, everything else just depends on your budget.
Perfect video, so lucky I found this first before I even took the converter out of the box.
Just discovered these on sale in UK. Great sales pitch and with the films I have I think i will commit. At least if it comes quickly enough plenty of time locked down with the corona virus.
Great video! I felt the film digitizer did the best job. 😊👍
When you post such an opinion, it would be much more valuable for others if you give a detailed explanation. For example: "I liked the even lighting." or "The colors seemed more realistic."
Pretty good! I've digitized 18 small reels on a Wolverine (720P) so far, so I have some notes that may be useful for people using either one:
- The Wolverine has a third clip for the film on the right side. Yours may as well.
- I love maximizing resolution (I'm a photographer and software developer), but honestly, anything beyond 720P feels like overkill when scanning consumer 8mm stock.
- I always use the frame adjust, it allows me to capture as much as possible, including video captured around the sprocket holes. The holes are visible, but I'm not bothered by it, and this results in movies that are closer to the 16:9 framing of modern TVs. (I also figure in the future, it'll be easy to use neural networks to fill in the holes.)
- I agree about setting the Sharpness to Low. Sharpening in post gives me a lot more control and fewer MPEG artifacts.
- I'm using DaVinci Resolve for video editing, it's free and *really* good. The paid version also has an excellent temporal dust and scratch removal filter.
- The Wolverine I'm using (newer firmware?) saves MP4 files at 20fps, so it only needs to be slowed down to 80%. DaVinci Resolve makes this pretty easy, and has an Optical Flow setting to create smoother interpolated frames (I'm saving my final files at 24fps).
- For digital capture, it's better to mildly overexpose your source video (just not to the point of clipping highlights). This gives you better information for your post-production grading, noise reduction, etc. I've been pretty happy with the default exposure on most of the reels I've scanned so far.
Thanks for all the great info! I, too, am a software developer. TH-cam and film are more or less my side hustle! Most of my film is 16 fps, so inferring the footage at 16fps in premiere works for a lot and I can export at 15 fps which is close but if I'm embedding at another frame rate, I'll have to see about optical flow or frame blending and how those look. I really appreciate you adding to the discussion! When I posted this there wasn't a lot of detail out there and have been really happy with how this video has performed. For some reason my scanner has issues with the white balance if I over expose. Whites appear yellow. Thanks again!
Wow this is awesome thank you I will look to you for any advice I made I appreciate everything to comment is great because I'm a newbie to this I collect 8 mm super 8 and 16 mm films I also have projectors for all.. but since I couldn't afford the crazy money they want for one of these when I seen it online here in the US on the East Coast I had to have it.. I will look forward to your help I'll be able to email you I hope I'm also on Facebook thank you sir thank you I look forward to any help you can give me doing this with what you have described when transferring films thank you
@@EricCosner that's awesome Eric and preserving films I've top notch whether they be 8 mm super 8 regulator or 16 mm they all need to be preserved these are history I have a lot of home movies and a lot of feature films they need to be preserved and this is my forte I'm doing this preserving
Good advice from a fellow digitizer--thanks!
Hi Eric, Thanks for posting this video, it's an excellent comparison test between projecting and scanning! I've just got the Reflecta scanner and yes, it's a shame about the high degree of compression. Pity that output compression couldn't be set before scanning, still the results are better than projecting overall as you've clearly shown.
The next step is to edit my footage in FCPX where I can reduce noise, sharpen and crop in slightly too. As in my setup, I set to scan just beyond the whole frame!
Cheers from the UK! PS I'll probably do a 'How To' on my channel at some point to!
I received my machine last week. I spent this last week transferring my grandparents 22 five minute reels I've had for about 20 years. Results were great. Each reel was 2 minutes taking 30 minutes each reel. I used can of air to clean out track. It did get dusty. Then transferred to laptop. All 22 reels took up about 4.5 GB. Again, I'm very happy with my $300 "knockoff" Wolverine. And thank you for the orientation.
Sounds like a great experience! Did you experience any freezing with the reel on the scanner? Mine keeps freezing up and I keep trying to troubleshoot what I'm doing wrong.
Bro... You literally answered every single question I had about this process in this video… The difference between 8 MM & super 8, The process for digitizing, the frame rate or percentage rate to default, how different it looks from digitizer to projector source, the difference between the sprockets, everything dude. Thank you so much
Thanks bro! Very much appreciate the feedback! It took me over a week to make this video. I wanted to cover as much as possible. Believe it or not you can even zoom out and film the sprocket holes which I learned later. Thanks again!!
@@EricCosner WHAT!?? That is wicked cool, for added vintage effect!
@@anubiscomplex showing the sprocket holes is useful for eliminating the vertical movement the scanner's very basic film transport produces. You can use (professional and expensive) video editing software to use the sprocket holes as a reference for eliminating that shakiness, then output a very steady video with just the image frames. It's possible to reference image elements too, and eliminate most of the camera shake that's normal with the small handheld home movie cameras used.
glorious! I was saying to JOA that this is wonderful to see what someone else has experienced to help you to make decisions - God bless & thank you! 🇨🇱🇺🇸
Hello! I recently acquired a Super 8 Camera for the purpose of B-roll in my Vlogs - I know this video is almost 3 years old, but does this still hold up? This is one of the few videos I've seen on TH-cam reviewing this at-home digitizer
Definitely go for the film digitaizer
I just ordered mine and looking forward to using it. Just wondering if the memory card needs to be formatted? Does the option come up on the screen to do that?
It does come with an option to format the card. I don’t remember if I did the format when I unboxed it, but it wouldn’t hurt. It’s on the 3rd page of the menu and it will ask you to confirm before formatting.
@@EricCosner Ok thanks!
Hey thanks for the video. I transferred about 75 of my parent's Super 8 films using that very same Ambico system and a camcorder in 1993. Seeing the flicker and the vignetting brought back memories of that. Planning on redoing it soon with a more modern method.
One thing about the video transfer system is it is very fast compared to scanning frame by frame. I think my projectors bulb was a little harsh and that's why it showed so many scratches. The frame-by-frame scanner does okay, but the video codec sometimes produces artifacts, especially if there's a lot of film grain.
@@EricCosner projector bulbs are hard to find and expensive. I think that overall quality is much better using digital scanner.
Nice job 👍 was looking into what kind of quality, you can get from that unit. Side by side of the 2 options, very helpful. The other option was to use a pro service. Now I know that the machine at a service should be of a much higher caliber, but at close to $90 a reel, it works out much better for my bank account to buy one of these units!
excellent i just bought one and works a charm just make sure people slippy side down in the slide
Just bought one of these and am eager to try it out. Did you try redoing this video with the exposure set to normal or +1? Perhaps the digitizer would be a little bit brighter if you did.
Watched to compare to my Wolverine. Looks very similar, but the menus have some differences. Good idea on slightly underexposing. It's easier to add gain, but when the levels are blown out, that can't be fixed. Nice job.
I have always wondered if the wolverine was similar or maybe slightly better. Thank you!
Did your Wolverine claim to produce 1080p output? Was it any better than the horrible quality of this unit?
@@scottbaker4534 My Wolverine outputs 720p. They also sell a Pro unit that outputs 1080p. What specifically is "horrible" about the film scanner featured in this vid?
@@ThriftyAV Easily answered. The Wolverine's main problem lies in the mp4 encoding process, which seems to lean heavily on "removing scratches" but leaves behind so many digital artifacts (tiny rectangular shapes that obscure details) that it leaves a resulting image which resembles, as one comment I read says, "Frosted glass." I was going to say "shower door glass" but not all shower doors have obscured glass. Perhaps your screen is not HD, or your vision has deteriorated due to some health condition. I certainly don't mean to insult you, in either case, I assure you, the quality is rather poor, even if you don't see it.
One of my fondest memories of my late grandfather was when we stayed up late into the night talking and he suggested we watch one of his favorite late night shows, The Howard Stern Show. In this particular episode, Howard's guest was an exotic dancer. At one point, she performed for the audience, wearing rather large "pasties" over two particularly large identical regions of her upper anatomy. My grandfather laughed gleefully, looked over at me and said, "Isn't that terrific!? They can show a beautiful nude woman on TV now!" My grandfather, I should stress, had respect for women. He merely believed the human body is beautiful and is nothing to be ashamed of. What I realized is that my grandfather's poor eyesight meant that he didn't see the pasties. They blurred in his vision so that the woman's body appeared to have no covering anywhere. I didn't have the heart to clarify for him that he was not seeing what he thought he saw.
My eyes, thank goodness, are still quite sharp. What I can praise about Wolverine is the evenness of the light, which potentially makes for not merely crisp, fine details, but eliminates a great amount of both overexposed "bleaching" and underexposed "blackout" regions that would otherwise not just obscure details, but eliminate them altogether.
But in what I would bet money was their hamfisted attempts both to reduce scratches and reduce file size, the makers of the probably re-branded Wolverine transfer unit have made an unforced fatal error, easily corrected with better software.
I'd recommend the makers of the unit talk to the makers of HandBrake and some computer science grads looking to make a name for themselves who can improve the quality of the output without much, if any, file size increase.
I mean your starting off with imperfection so it is what it is. Just having the film digitized is a big win. I had mine professionally transferred at a camera shop and he supplied uncompressed video with high res. It still looked bad - it’s just the source. The digitizer does a fairly nice job.
The digitizer does a good job. You still have to color correct and grade it to get the best quality.
I was wishing to see how a modern day scenes will look on it . . . nice video thanks
Hey Eric, thank you so much for taking the time and effort to product this excellent video review of the 8mm (Super 8MM) analog to digital converter. I'm in the market to purchase a device to convert 1960s videos, and your comparison of the "Complete Video Transfer System" with the "8mm and Super 8 Film Scanner Pro" was very instructive. Each device has its own positives and negatives. Your video has given me much needed information to consider. Keep up the good work.
Excellent Vid demoing the scanner! Certainly the footage looks better than copying from a screen. My only concern, is that the recorded data is so compressed! Pity there's no way of having an option to lessen the compression and resulting file size? Anyway, cheers from the UK!
Excellent video Eric,although I have no films to transfer it was interesting to watch and this could help many people that want to do something like this,for me I think the transfer system did a much better job,the colours look much more natural IMO
Thanks many time it was very helpfully we just got this projecter GOD bless u
Both great bout Film Digitizer better overall..I want one ! Thanks for the excellent tutorial 👍
Clearly Film digitizer is winner, there is no question about it. Film digitizer scan (take pictures) directly from each frame, same as what film studios do for transport movies to DVD or Blu-ray for selling in the market, but Video transfer system use cheap conventional method, recording directly from projector screen you will get issues like brighter in the middle and darker and shades on the edges and specially on corners, blinking frames , color inaccuracy.
The Digitizer is pixulated but looks good. Better than taking out a projector and shoting it on the wall. Super awesome vide review.
Thank you for posting this. After doing a lot of research I finally decided to buy one of these off of eBay. It's a used (or refurbished) machine from a fairly large eBay seller. The model that I got is Branded Hammacher Schlemmer but after some research and close examination it looks like every model that is under $500.00 is manufactured by the same people. The Wolverine Pro model appears to have an attachment that will allow for even larger reels but I don't come across much of that kind of thing so I should be fine. I also got it for at least $100.00 less than the cheapest working Wolverine that I could find. Anyway, the one that I got that it doesn't come with the book so I looked around and luckily found your video. This should be enough to help get me started. Nice work!
John, thank you! It does seem like there's a lot of very similar film scanners out there! I have found a manual or two online but they aren't very detailed. It almost seems like the folks who wrote the manual didn't ever use the device, so I think first hand experience probably works better. Thanks very much for the feedback! Have a good one!
Eric Cosner update: Mine came in and I am pretty happy with it. I have some family reels that have been sitting around and a few flea market finds that I have wanted to check out. I honestly just wanted to get eyes on this stuff and figured that these would be decent quality. It has gone far past my expectation. Not sure if it’s broadcast quality but these are enough for anyone to work with. If a lot of extra post became necessary - I’d probably send out for better scans at a later date but this is a great little tool for anyone who just wants to get their old films digital. I’ve scanned around 25 reels so far. That would have easily cost me between $350 and $700. Depending on the process- projection costs less but a professional scanning system might cost upwards of $30 for a 50’ roll. Right now I am in for around $250 and I have at least 25 more reels in storage. Thanks again!
Hammacher Schlemmer is basically another version of Sharper Image. They don't make anything, just slap their brand name on it and jack up the price. Also like Trump steaks or Trump wine. It's a con job. Hammacher Schlemmer also sold a high quality Reflecta scanner for about $1800, which they couldn't sell at the price. They dropped it to $1600, to $1200, to $900. It's still too much for a hobbyist which is why they sell so few of them. Greed is the enemy of industry. They fail to understand that selling in higher volumes increases profit better than raising the price and selling fewer units.
@@scottbaker4534 Thanks. Yes. This machine was just fine for my purposes. I was originally going to just scan my stuff and pass it along but I decided to hold onto it just incase I come across another box or if I can offer the service to friends. We are all in our late 40's now and everyone seems to be finding these in their families attics.
I went ahead and bought one of these off Amazon this morning. I have a BUNCH of old 8mm tapes i need to get digitized but i'm uncertain as to the fragility of them. Using a standard film projector to capture them was not an option as I was looking for something like this that would just capture them frame by frame to lower the chances of the film breaking. I have a splicer and such so if it happens i'm ready but i just wanted to lessen the chances of it happening by getting this device. Thank you for making this video, I feel much better about buying it now and I look forward to digitizing all these rolls.
The concept is great, the execution in this machine is horrid. There should be sharpness enough to clearly see grain with 5 mpix sensor and there should be no compression artifacts from the frame by frame capture.
there is the possibility to transfer the negative and then change to positive on the computer. congratulations. fantastic.
Andrew, I think in theory it could work. The scanner's white balance and exposure drifts a bit so I'm not sure what that might do with negatives. I wish I had a piece of negative to test out and see!
I saw a video showing to NOT zoom with the Wolverine and do the crop later in post editing. This makes a huge difference. The video with the digital zoom of the converter is riddled with compression artifacts. The video with no zoom is virtually artifact free.
great job in showing machine setup and results. I've got a box full of old 8mm reels and was thinking of using a service but cost was 2x this machine. I think i'll get this unit (the film digitizer).
Thank you! I worried that when sending them away they could get lost. The machine allowed me to get all mine backed up, and in many ways, even though the quality might not be perfect, I think the quality is good enough for most 8mm. Some of my films were really faded, so paying for those to be professionally done didn't make sense. Thanks again!
Thanks for sharing this.
Sadly I lost my super 8 films and the project some time ago from a foreclosure of a storage facility that the stuff was in. This would have been great.
Very sorry to hear that! Fingers crossed they will turn up!
Hi Eric, thanks for the video. I have used the wolverine but today stop working the lamp. The whole mechanism works well, advance film without a problem. You know if there's a way to change the lamp? Saludos from Chile!
The digitizer did a great job. It seems to have recovered original colors abd brightbess levels, removed dirt and scratches. Really awesome.
Good find, definitely have to buy one of those bad boys and use them for my video arsenal
Great instructive video.
Personally I prefer the VTS as it brighter whilst the FD looks a bit dark although the frames are better and less dirt spots. . . but it looks too dark? Anyway a great video to give some ideas. Thanks.
Thanks for this video. Spot on. Works perfectly and I understand it by way of your tutor. Thank you. Enjoy your day!
Thank you 😊
That's a decent recording, given the age. Thanks for doing this.
Thank you!
well done great info many memories enjoyed and passed on !
Thanks. Just purchased one of these. Have wanted to transfer some old film I have.
I have two questions. How much time in either hours or minutes will the 32gb memory card hold? And how do you know when you are getting close to the end of the 32gb 's ability to hold any more film (or information)? Thanks. Enjoyed the presentation. Very informative.
about 75MB per minute (1200 frames at the fixed 20fps MP4 frame rate of the video saved). I don't know how much if any compression is applied. I have never filled a card so no clue what happens with a full one, I move them to my PC after every reel scan to review and name the videos. A fairly full 7 inch reel was 1.7GB.
I just purchased this that you have, same box and all. I have a couple minor issues, but all in all, it does as advertised. The fast forward for rewinding is not great, have to help it. After watching your video again, could I just use the USB to my computer, transfer my home movies to my computer, then transfer them to DVD? The Kedok comes with a '32 gb' SD card, but after using it, it only holds 1.1 gb' only.
Oh, tip....best to have long nose tweezers handy.
Thanks for your review. Great job.
a really tremendous tutorial but would you please make a video on exactly how to use Adobe to slow down movie speed.
Thanks, Tom! I will consider that for the future. Been meaning to do a video on post processing, color correcting and speed adjustments.
Thanks for a great tutorial. It stands out from others I have seem because you don't bother with annoying sfx or background music. You just get straight to the point and that's what I want. And as a consequence I've just ordered a converter via Amazon. But right at the end of your vid you recommended using a splicer. Do you have one you can recommend as there seems to be loads out there.
Thanks again
Hello, great video, I'm curious about the two different scanners (720 and 1080) if one would capture faster than the the other. They probably take the pictures at about the same rate I'm guessing, probably about two pics/sec? But when the capture is done, the machine must take some time to render I would think. So, just wondering if the 720 would take less time? Thanks
Hello and thanks for excellent question! As far as rendering, the unit will be finished the second that you hit stop, or it detects the end of the reel. It essentially writes a file on the SD card in real time each time you start and stop. The playback of most machines is set to 30 fps which is too fast so you almost always have to edit it on a computer to adjust the frame rate. That frame rate is encoded in the mp4 file. So depending on your computer, if you have to edit the footage to slow it down or make other adjustments then 720p would be less taxing on the computer. I have another machine made by Kodak that I never finished reviewing and that one actually outputs the file at a similar frame rate. I think it was 15 fps. The issue with that Kodak machine is it always jams the film. I kinda gave up on it during the reviews. Hope this is helpful! Thanks again!
@@EricCosner thanks for the information. I've been looking to get one of these soon. I use Pinnacle studio for editing, not sure if I can change frame rate like in premiere, but I know I can definitely slow it down to 60% for super 8. Thanks
Yes the digitizer reduce the scratches, but the colors too, I think.
Thank You, that was excellent!
You might try adjusting the shutter speed on your camera when doing a real time transfer. I used to transfer with a variable speed projector. I find at about 20 f/s you get total flicker free transfers. The digitizer makes the people look like you're looking through a frosted glass. It's nice that there's less scratches, but the picture quality is not there. Next time try projecting it on a screen and put it beside a flat screen TV and you'll see how much better the raw projection is in comparison to the digital transfer.
Thanks for the feedback. I used an app called FiLMiC pro that allowed me to select the frame rate. I tried quite a few of them, but it seems like my projector's motor doesn't run at a perfect speed. I may try 20 fps again just to see. I think the issue with quality on the digitizer is the software/codec and the camera just doesn't have the dynamic range to properly get at the shadows and highlights. Thanks again!
I agree AND disagree with you, Simon. I agree this unit is junk and produces "frosted glass" images. But frame-by-frame digitization, when done with the right sensor and software combination, is far superior to telecine, unless you project into a theater-sized screen and have super high-speed digital video camera positioned at a near zero angle from the projector. The ultimate telecine setup would be a digital camera synced to the projector some how, so that each frame is captured only once. Again. though, an HD scan of each frame, combined with software which does not destroy the scan image when compiling the video makes for the best quality.
@@scottbaker4534 I agree, the right sensor and software combination would be superior, but we are talking about this particular scanner and off the wall projection comparison.
Hi Mister... I want to collect "old school" movies. 8mm, 16mm etc ... But I have no place to install a projector. Don't these have a player that works with hdmi? How do I solve this job?
Does the super 8 film still need to be developed to be able to insert it into the digital scanner or can I pop the reel straight out of the camera and scan it using this machine? Someone pls help honestly stuck!!!!
The Super 8 film in its cartridge as it comes out of the camera most definitely has to be developed before it can be scanned anywhere for anything.
You mentioned in your comparison the the video transfer system was sharper and brighter in the shasows, don't you think that's because you stopped down the digitizer .5 stops and the sharpness down to low on the digitizer?
I think it work great. Video transfer is a bit sharpener but colors are better from digitizer. I would like see this film directly from projector for see difference of quality.
Interesting! I have the Reflecta version which is pretty much the same machine, though the menu options are slightly different. I am digitising my father's old Standard 8 films which date from around 1961 to 1977. It's all Kodachrome, as I suspect most home cine film from that time is. I haven't got Premiere Pro, but there is another way of changing the frame rate using MyMP4boxGUI. You basically have to de-mux the mp4, then remux it and specify the frame rate. It's a faff, but it does work. As I expect to be viewing the films on a PC with 60Hz or 75Hz refresh, I actually change the frame rate to 15 fps. This means it's about 7% slow - pretty unnoticeable IMO. I also reduce the resolution to half size, i.e. 720 x 540. Standard 8 frames are tiny, so it's no surprise that the graininess shows at 1440 x 1080
Thanks for the great video! That video compression is really disappointing. I wish there was a way around that.
Update I have designed and printed parts and made an extension rig, to take 7" reels and still run the scanner as it was intended. Even to the rewind process, I have 63 years worth of cine film reels to scan, Even had to print a 7" take-up reel as the only one I have has the larger sprocket hole. All sorted now, this is a fantastic product . Thanks for the video.
Just got the same exact machine, but as soon we get to the “Do Not Move The film” screen, it reads “CardProtected”. Could it be a SD card issue? It is unlocked. Hmm.
Thanks for making this video. Good to know that there is equipment like this out there. I noticed that you did not thread the film properly as indicated by the diagram on the video transcriber. Secondly Super 8 or 8 mm video at best has a resolution of maybe 480p. 35 mm gives about 4K, 16 mm film gives a resolution of about 1080p. So no way can you expect 8 mm to give you anything more than standard-definition or maybe 480p or super VHS at the most. I already have had a scan done of 8 mm to DVD and I was wondering if it would be worth it to redo it and to 480p DVD. Your video as telling me that it is probably not worth going through all the trouble. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for the video Eric. I have about 20-30 rolls of 8mm I can’t wait to process. I think the digitizer did great. What’s the better software to use for editing and such? Do we need the Adobe software or does Apple have something free already?
I use Davinci Resolve for my Editing. It is free and a very powerful tool.
So do you need a software to use this? I thought it was just connecting the reel and go...
Very useful thank you very much !
Film of a snow scene is probably less sharp than in a non-snow scene with better contrast. As I recall Super 8 image was sharper and steadier than regular 8mm. I tried a transfer system, toy like poor results.
That makes sense. The snow likely softened the light and should have produced less grain. Recently I've been playing with this new unit the Kodak Reelz. It's a little bit better than this film scanner, but the film jams at the splices. Hoping to release that video as soon as I can find a work around for the jamming issue.
I think i like more the digitizer, may be it gives more room to manipulate the images in an editor
@Lennox Adrian that shit fake as hell
Eric, when the machine saves the video it saves it at a default 30 frames per second. I know you can modify that to view on your computer screen to the correct 16 or 18 frames per second, but then how do you save it to a DVD at the correct FPS?
For exporting, I think the best approach would be to set your timeline to match your export media. If you are in an NTFS country, then 30 fps for dvd and if you are in a PAL country then 25 fps for DVD. This assumes, of course, you can interpret the input fps as I did. If not, you may have to make your timeline 16 or 18 fps. Regardless, when you export, I would export to the format & fps the dvd prefers. The video I shot was exported at 23.976 because I almost always use that fps for my youtube videos. It's possible a frame will be dropped or blended, depending on how the video software translates the frame-rates. At least that's how I would approach it. Thanks for the question!
For splicing- What glue is best to use now in 2022?
My dad's old films had a sound tape added to the side of the film. is there anyway to capture this sound please?
Great video. Does the film digitizer give you audio on Super 8 reels?
Is this one of the digitizer a that has a limit to how many small or large reels worth of film it will digitize? I recall one unit on the market limits the number of transfers one can do which I feel is cheating the buyer out of their money. Another question is that since most camera shops have long since dissapeared, where does one find the splicing tape? I already have a splicer however there are no longer any useable tapes with it. A bit of trivia, Kodak STILL makes Super 8 movie film, however it is by special order only. It seems there are a lot of universities still offering film making classes for this unique art form which was once the most prevalent form of capturing those precious memories in life.
Very interesting video! Great job
imo the video transfer system is soooo much better ... how did you do that ?
Great tutorial video. Thank you!
On Amazon, there is the Wolverine PRO selling for $399 and a Eyesen PRO selling for $299. Both have the extended arm for larger reels. The Wolverine has a black front and the Eyesen has a silver front. (Another TH-cam video said their Eyesen $299 said "Wolverine" when it was turned on.) Are these the same machines, but packaged differently? What is the difference?
The projector may have hairs in the gate which makes it look like there are more scratches.
Thanks for the excellent review. I just ordered the Wolverine Pro version and am curious about file storage size. Most of the reels I'll be transferring are 3" super 8. How many megapixels do this size reel requires on the SD card? Any thoughts? Thanks
Hey sorry it took me so long to get back to you! The 5" reels on this unit come out to about 1.0 GB per transfer. I would venture to say a 3" reel would be about half of that. I'm using an 8 GB card and it works well. It's nice not having to clean it off every time! Thanks!
I have one of these machines and It's stuck in the "advance" mode. Can't stop it or bring it back to the main menue. Even powering down an unplugging won't force it out, it just starts advancing again once powered back on. Any idea on how to force a reset?
Sorry to hear that your machine seems to be performing incorrectly. I know it usually advances two frames when first powered on, which makes me wonder if it is that feature that's actually stuck. This seems to be some sort of diagnostic that it performs when first powered up. If you haven't already done so, remove any memory card, completely removing the film and unplug the power supply for a minute or so before turning it back on. Then power it back on without the memory card and see if that makes any different. Also, do you see anything on the screen when it is advancing? There's a feature where if it sees an all white frame, it shuts down. I'll take a look at mine when I get a chance, and see if I can come up with any other ideas.