Wolverine 8mm & Super 8 Reels to Digital MovieMaker Pro Film Digitizer, Film Scanner, 8mm Film Scanner, Black (MM100PRO)

This is a review for the Wolverine Pro 8mm/Super 8mm film scanner. A lot has been written by others about the product. A couple of people did a very good job listing many of its pros and cons. But some of the cons and suggestions to remedy are a little unreasonable. It is important to remember this is a consumer quality product meant to let the average person digitize movie film, not a commercial quality product that is used in labs. So yes, the product could be improved, but that would also mean increasing the price, and at approximately $400 I think the price is right for the average person wanting to transfer old home movies, or hobbyist that digitizes movies for fun or artistic endeavors. For me, I had a bunch of old movies I wanted to digitize. I originally thought about having them done professionally by a lab. But considering the amount of films I had, and the cost to have them done commercially, it made more sense to buy this unit than to spend a thousand dollars or more to have it done by a lab. I did a lot of research and was worried by comments I read such as...it takes forever to do a film, you need to babysit the machine because it can get stuck, it splits film, etc. But I decided to take the plunge anyway. And I am glad I did! Like I said earlier, this is a consumer level quality machine, but it is packed with enough features to allow you to make nice transfers of you films. You can tweak a number of items such as sharpness, exposure, and frame adjustment. It took me a while to find an ideal set of settings for my films, but once I did, I rarely had to readjust. And when you are done, you can always make changes and enhance your copies in software. I use VSDC Free Video Editing Software, and it does a terrific job. It allows me to add music, and voice overs, etc. turning my old silent movies into talkies. The types of movies I am transferring are old 8mm home movies from the 1950s. Typical family films that were spliced together onto 5 and 7 inch reels. I am also transferring Super 8mm films I made in the 1970s as a hobbiest...stop action movies, mini silent films, and travelog movies I made, which had accompanying sound on reel-to-reel tape (which would always fall out of sync after about ten minutes). In fact, since the Wolverine does not come with anything other than a 4-3/4 inch take-up reel, I use an old 7 inch tape recorder reel as a take-up reel for my larger movies. My films have a lot of splices. Some were nice and neatly done, but others were horrible-thick and wide. In fact, some of the splices were done with scotch tape many years ago. Considering the age of the films, amount of splices and the quality of the splices, my films have been going through the unit with very little problems. As I write this, the unit is next to me transferring a film I shot in 1978. It is on a 7 inch reel, and has been running for about three hours (it is nearly done). If I were to guess, it has at least a hundred splice points if not more, and it hung only three time during the transfer...one time because the splice was too wide (overlapped both sides of the film), and the other splices were very thick (I have a feeling those were done with scotch tape). Other than that, I had no problems. I had some other films that did jump, and went out of alignment, but that was due to the film, not the unit. The film's sprocket holes were ripped and/or stretched from years of play and abuse in a variety of old projectors. This unit is not perfect, but it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. And it certainly isn't as bad as others may lead you to believe. If you are like me, and have a lot of movies you want to digitize and post online for family and/or friends to see on Youtube (hidden link only they will know about) this will do the job. In fact, if you don't want to use post production software, Youtube has tools you can use to add sound and enhance you transfer.

This thing is fantastic. The "Movie Maker Pro" works as flawlessly as I would expect any similar product this affordable. I was going to take my old films to a local converting store-counter, when I realized I couldn't order and prioritize the reels and the content to my preference, and would spend a small fortune doing them all, and I have no way to review them. The "MMP" lets you review in the viewing screen as the recording is being done; letting you stop and adjust frame size and position when needed. It can hang-up on splices (extra thickness on film) and this should be expected in a close-tolerance process. Sometimes you can muscle the film through with a pull by hand without stopping the recording; and you do need a software editing program like Windows Movie Maker which came with my Dell PC, if anything at all goes wrong and you have to put two or more segments of movies "back together again;" because MMP will start a new recording file each time you stop and restart recording. Besides, sometimes there are lengths of unexposed or underexposed film you want to edit out to make the film better. The fact it increments the recording/file numbers is a GOOD thing, because it eliminates later confusion about sequencing and possibility of same file no.'s overwriting on your computer, losing a good predecessor file, and having to scan over again, or worse, not realizing it until much later... where did it go? It can increment files to 9,999. I disagree with an earlier reviewer that the take-up reel motor should be "stronger," in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it has a belt or slip-clutch system to NOT tear apart your precious old films. The take-up reel does NOT pull your film through; it merely takes up the slack, if any, and winds the scanned film onto a temporary reel until you want to rewind onto your storage reel. Rather, the sprockets in the scanning bed area turn and move the film through the scanner without need for a take-up reel at all. It would be nice to have a higher megapixel recording camera/chip, but this one is adequate and affordable. I DO agree with earlier reviews that said the guide posts should rotate freely on bearings, again, a cost issue; and that bypassing several of these posts can help with more continuous flow of the film... I do bypass several. Experimentation will guide you. Keep the scan bed clean with the provided brush... the old films do deposit dust. How considerate of Wolverine to include the little air brush. My tips: if the reels do rub on the backing arm/surface you can pull them slightly outward or add some scotch tape to the backing to protect it (some reels have become crooked and wobble); it's very helpful to move the film freely in the bed to where you want it, as to start or restart a recording by clicking open the bed's hold-down cover, and the film will then slide while still under the three white tabs; I stopped recording the white leader tape, blank of images, and instead moved the film as described above to the first few frames of actual image; then I do the frame adjust command next, and use the easy X,Y,W axis provided on-screen to center my frames; only then do I enter record mode, and adjustment is usually right-on. Do "baby-sit" your valuable old films to watch for hang-ups and frame out-of-centering, this is the fault of the film's worn and spliced condition, not of the MMP. You'll enjoy the frame by frame viewing during the process and see many things in your film that you won't notice at ten-times the playback speed later (reading advertising on Christmas gift box-lids, scanning the old furniture in your childhood home, etc.); lastly, I don't thread the leader or sometimes leader-less films directly onto the take-up reel at the beginning, rather I start at frame 1-4, do the frame-adjust, start recording, and as the scanned film lengthens I then insert it into the take-up wheel's slot, hand-wind the wheel off-spindle to almost caught-up with the scanned slack film and only then press the wheel onto the rotating take-up shaft; this allows all but the first 1-4 frames to be scanned and avoids leader/splice hang-up at the very start; the more you eliminate hand-pulling hung up film through, the less likely to break it or the splices. You acquire a skill of gently pressing the reel onto the rotating shaft until the lock-in fin on the shaft inserts into the reel's fin-slot and let your hands rotate with the counter-clockwise movement so stress on the motor or clutch is minimal... this is less resistance than a hung-up film that stops take-up completely until powered off or hand-pulled through the bed. You can either do that, or resign to not scanning the length of film you thread into the mounted reel; or else always use and replace missing leader. When an old film breaks during scanning, and a few did, I don't worry about splicing or adding leader, I simply wind the broken end on top of the already taken-up film on the right-side reel, when the newly scanned section becomes long enough to give it several wraps over the reel to where it will not slip, but will continue winding. I don't expect to ever have to get these old films out of storage to work with again, but can deal with breaks later if I decide to re-scan in the future. I was thrilled to see for the first time my parents' wedding movie, over 71 years-old color film, and a few of the reels are up to 78 years old. The internet said films can last "several decades," imagine color film over seven decades old!

Este digitalizador cumple muy bien con la función para la que fue diseñado. La calidad del archivo de video dependerá de la calidad de la película original. Se pueden hacer algunos ajustes como encuadre (casi todas las películas lo requieren) y otros antes de digitalizar pero también se puede usar algún software de edición como Adobe Premier para mejorar colores, saturación o iluminación sobre todo. Su uso es bastante sencillo aunque es necesario estar pendiente de cuando termine de digitalizar la película ya que no se detiene automáticamente. Una película de 3 minutos se digitaliza en aproximadamente 30 minutos. Es una muy buena inversión si se cuenta con muchas películas 8 o super 8.

Sto usando questo apparecchio ormai da un paio di anni (quasi un centinaio di bobine riversate) e mi sono trovato bene. Se uno ha molti film da riversare è senz'altro molto più conveniente rispetto a far fare il lavoro da un professionista. La qualità è buona anche se non a livello super professionale, ma per i vecchi film di mio nonno, di mio padre e miei va benissimo e mi riporta indietro nel tempo. Ovviamente il processo è lento e bisogna armarsi di santa pazienza, ma il risultato è buono.

Easy to use. Meets expectations

very pleased,the detail on my 8mm films are best ever .my memories live again.thank you cliff

大きなリールが使用可能なこと。 性能の割にコンパクトなことがあけられます。ただ惜しむらくは 日本語の取説が付属してないこと。設定の際に困り果ててしまいました。どうやったかは別として、快適に使用しています。