Top positive review
58 people found this helpful
Small, cute, I AM IN AWE OF THIS DEVICE!
By John from Appleton on Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2017
This is one of the most amazing gadget-ty things I have ever owned. YES, there IS a $2500 device you can buy that performs this task more professionally, but I guarantee you it comes no where near achieving ten times the quality of the result. Reading other reviews, I find that buyers were not careful to know what they are buying. Before I expound on that, let me state that I am just DELIRIOUSLY happy to own this thing! Okay! Other reviewers complain as follows: It does not capture audio. It is limited to 5 inch reels. It is limited to 720p scan resolution. The files it creates play back at 30 frames per second (too fast). It only creates mp4 files which are grainy and the video runs too fast. There are many other complaints. There is nothing inherently “grainy” about mp4 files. Graininess on amateur film video is generally from an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit that is trying to compensate for the fact that you are failing to provide enough light for what you are recording. This problem is most over with respect to modern gear which simply does not require the type of illumination that was necessary in home movies and early camcorders….and of course, there is nothing about mp4 files that make them play back at a different speed. What is wrong with 720p? It still looks pretty good on our big screen TVs! Do you think there is much more to capture on a tiny frame of 8mm film? READ the sales information carefully, and none of this should surprise you, and NONE of this is really a problem when you consider that the savings on the first 10 videos you digitize will pay for the cost of this machine. I used the (recently ubiquitous) services of the most visible provider of this service. The results were fine, but I waited a few weeks and paid a lot of money. I since redid a couple of my films myself and the results were EASILY as clear and watchable. Yes, the default playback speed of the videos you create gives you a pretty fast video, but when you use the common software video players, they almost all give you an opportunity to slow it down. I recommend .6 of the recorded speed. If you burn dvds, editors such as Corel VideoStudio and most others will let you CREATE a DVD that plays back at the proper speed without needing any special tweak by the person you send it to. Reading other reviews, it sounds like this machine might not be as sturdy as a Sherman tank. I recommend you do not use it for rewinding. Just rewind by hand with the help of a pencil. Save the motor for the more important use during processing. Keep it clean. Follow the directions about keeping dust out of the little place where the frames are squared up for having their picture taken. To me, with proper use, this should last a pretty long time, and should be fixable for most little minor things that might happen. Most end users would not even need the machine once they have gotten through all of their archival videos. At that point, you can probably sell it online and recover some of your costs. The little 13 page owners manual is very well done, and obviously has ENGLISH as its primary language. Just understand that you should be very cautious and careful with this. If you do that, you will be stupendously delighted as am I. Don't try to compare it feature by feature with devices that cost a four digit number! I could go on further, but there is probably a maximum review length. Ask me questions if you like - I think there is a way you can do that! I am a big fan. John in Wisconsin
Top critical review
20 people found this helpful
BE CAREFUL OF THE WARRANTY!
By Dan Margolis on Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2022
$300 is a lot of money, but it's not a bad price for what the machine is supposed to do, and perhaps most machines are strong like tanks, but I just bought a lemon. I could easily give the product a much higher rating if only the company changed their warranty terms. I just returned this unit for a refund; thankfully it was still under Amazon's warranty. I transferred several reels of film and found a number of minor irritations but figured, "Whatever, cheaper than sending the films out." Then the scanner stopped working. It just would not advance the film forward anymore. I tried a reel of film that I had already put through without any problems, and even that reel of film would not advance. I've been abundantly cautious with the machine, as I'd spent $299 plus tax on it, so there was nothing I could have done that would have broken the machine. Like I said, the machine was still covered by Amazon's warranty, so there was no problem with that. BUT the maker's warranty is absolute trash. Thank goodness I didn't put the machine aside for a while before using it, as Amazon only covers the product for a month. Wolverine advertises a warranty extending for a period of a year or until you've scanned 200 films, whichever is sooner. Not bad, right? A year warranty is standard, and who has 200 films? Wrong. Read the manual (available as a pdf from Amazon) and you'll find that there is a huge caveat: the 200 films isn't actually 200 films: it's based on the number that the machine's counter says. When I sent the Wolverine back, the counter was nearly 50 - and I don't even nearly that many films! It actually counts every single time you start and stop the machine as a film having been processed. This is ridiculous, because each film you have to start and stop for numerous reasons.Trying to get a picture in frame, so that the sprocket hole isn't showing in the video, or so that the top isn't cut off and showing on the bottom? You'll have to start/stop a few times for that, because the frame, for whatever reason, sometimes moves while the film is scanning. Congratulations! You've just scanned half a dozen films - with a single reel! Film misfeed? Get stuck? In each instance, you have to start/stop recording, and each time you do that, you have - according to their warranty - scanned a whole film. It's easily conceivable that you might get more than 200 on the counter scanning a couple dozen films. And then your warranty's done! Even if the machine kept working, there were other annoyances: the lever that held the film down over the window doesn't open far enough so that you can truly brush a piece of dust off of the glass easily, for example. As mentioned above, you can't adjust the frame while the film is going, so you have to stop and then adjust and then re-start the film. Then you have to start recording again - only for the film to jump out of the position it was in as soon as it starts recording. Really, you have to just zoom out so that you record more than just the picture and then use editing software to crop it. You have to use the editing software anyway, because each time you stop/start, the machine creates separate files that you have to edit together. The rewind is ridiculously slow; you literally can rewind a reel faster by hand. The minor annoyances would be annoying but manageable, though, if the machine didn't break, and I would have felt comfortable exchanging the machine if it wasn't for the grotesque nature of the warranty.
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