Oddity Archive: Episode 225.5 - Ben’s Junk: Wolverine Moviemaker Pro 8mm & Super8 Film Scanner
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2021
- A half-hour Ben’s Junk? You might say the machine caused it to run reely long.
Transfers:
Zippy’s Beach Adventure (1958) - • Zippy's Beach Adventur...
Blackhawk Films Prevue8 Reel (Super8 Silent, 1968 version) - • Blackhawk Prevue 8 (Si...
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Clients keep asking me to transfer super-8 film for them, and I explain that the equipment to do it really well is expensive and not really viable for my scale of operation. There are a few right ways and a lot of bad ways to transfer film. Bravo for companies like Wolverine for trying, but your experience is probably typical of the problems people have with this level of gear.
The only way i've gotten good quality for cheap myself is a Remore Controlled DLSR, with a mactro lense and then have a button that advance the rolls by 1 frame takes a photo, and then advance it. of course without sound.
the click from that thing is hypnotic!
For what you paid for it and the condition it was in, a great find. But you have to nurse maid it
On my Wolverine Film2Digital (not the pro version), putting the sharpness on "high" creates noticable artifacts. I would rather deal with soft footage than create fake sharpness on the transfer. I agree that exposure should be backed off, as it can get overblown at default. And yes, the "rewind" is painfully slow. You put a CG up that it adds a bluish tint. On Kodachrome home movie reels, I've been getting an over-emphasis of yellow. Congrats on the thrift store find! I paid a LOT more for mine!
Admittedly, i haven’t tried any color film yet. For what it’s worth, the orange blotches on the Zippy reel seemed accurate.
Having spent recent time trying to find a deal on one of these, I have to say I was very jealous that you found that one for only $10! My experience with the one I bought has run well so far through a lot of reels of 8mm film. My goal was to simply get quite old film from the forties, fifties and sixties digitized without the expense of an outside transfer operation. But this was one of the better reviews of this device I found after watching a lot of them prior to buying. Anyway, thanks for the effort, I know this comment comes nearly a year after your post, but it just obviously popped up in my youtube per their algorithm of my searches.
If you had to pay the full price for the thing, would you have a more negative feeling towards it, or are you factoring that part in? 10 bucks for a $500 or so piece of equipment is beyond lucky, and I'm assuming whoever they had appraising this piece probably was being incredibly generous or had no clue what the item was. I was at a Goodwill recently, and they were charging 4 bucks for a Happy Meal toy, and a recent one at that.
I tried to keep the original pricetag in mind. Guess I didn’t do as strong a job of implying that in the video as I could have.
@@OddityArchive I wouldn't doubt you would keep that into consideration, but I've always personally experienced a subconscious price to purchase no matter what I'm buying. Cheaper things I tend to be more flexible with. Even if I can't buy another for the same price, at least it wasn't a major waste of money. Still, the mystery of why Goodwill charged only 10 bucks for that thing gets me. I've seen them sell dollar store kid's puzzles, presumably with pieces missing, for around 4 or 5 bucks.
I'm sure they had no idea what it was.
@@OddityArchive I'm guessing the Goodwills near you are different than the ones near me. I've seen empty boxes that went for more than what you paid for that. And not even in good condition. I wouldn't doubt one near me would take that very same machine, split it up into the machine, the empty box, and the cables and somehow their combined price would be more than buying one new. Or worse. They'd put it behind the counter with the incomplete, dirty game consoles and action figures from a franchise no one has heard of.
Nah. They "understand" video game stuff and some more basic tech. When loose SNES games turn up, they're in the $15-20 range. Action figurines and such are stupidly overpriced as well. At our Savers, I've seen Blu-Ray movies sell for within $1-2 of what they are new. My encounters have been fairly well documented on Archive Thrifting over the last three years.
3:52-4:01 XD XD why did I know you were going to say that? it's too perfect bub
Holy crap. The thrift store gods love you SO much!
All I see at my thrift stores are old iPod docks.
Funny, I was working on an X-Men arcade PCB prior to watching this video.
I wouldn't use a CRT TV to adjust the frame contours, Those old suckers have large amount of overscan, You will be better off with the tiny screen on the machine and a pair of reading glasses.
As the text blurb in the episode said, it was just convenient. Having said that, I’d love a monitor with no overscan, especially an old CRT one.
@@OddityArchiveMany CRT TVs _do_ have width and height adjustment - particularly old ones! More modern ones it's a preset inside the set. (Don't go inside particularly a CRT TV unless you know what you're doing.) Extremely late-model ones _might_ not have such a control.
One of the finer points that most people fail to understand is that the Pro model's scanner has a resolution of 10 Mpixels, or dividing by 3 for the RGB triad, is 3.5 Mpixels of color dots, enough to create a raw image of 2304 x 1536. Where many people go wrong is that a cheaper scanner does not have such high resolution, resulting in a loss of quality. Granted, 8mm film is not sharp to begin with, but hey, you gotta try to get as many pixels in a scan as you can! (The Kodak scanner has a similar resolution.)
Honestly it needs an option for still frame PNG/bitmap output to avoid the MPEG4 compression,
I really wish someone would be able to hack the firmware of this device to do it
That's pretty cool you were able to get it so cheap. I frequently use it to convert 8mm and Super 8. While it does a fine job doing 8mm, for Super 8, it always ends it being very jumpy, sometimes to even a point where it just skips the film. I know there are machines out there that scan at an even higher quality, but those costs thousands of dollars and are well out of my price range.
I have one of these. After using it for a while, I decided the image quality was just not up to my standards. Combining that and my desire to scan 16mm films and I decided to try and make my own film scanner, which has been half-done for half a year, and probably will never actually see the light of day.
😂 not up to your standard it’s film that’s 50 years old pro
This thing is perfect for 99% of ppl’
You just want the old memories and be able to watch them’
Anyone expecting 1080p -4k is on drugs (no offense)
Only complaint I have is size of output file’ U Can run it through a video editor after’
To get old memories to modern media this thing is awesome!
For his $10 find even more awesome
@@joshymcdaniel9233 Huge envy at $10 for a clearly brand-new unit!
As for 1080p etc.: 8mm film is easily capable of that. Not all, especially if the original wasn't focused and/or developed properly, but a lot of it is - certainly colour film from the '70s. Not sure if it'd make 4K, though Super 8 should come close (you'd want 4K rather than 1080p to get the best out of it).
Nice find at that goodwill Ben, interesting point out I actually mentioned on the 8mm film video that you put out a few years ago I actually mentioned this scanner as a way to convert your films.
It’s okay, however the problem is it doesn’t really show the quality of at least what films can actually be, they can be pretty good if scanned using the right equipment.
Sadly though, scanning regular and super 8mm films is complicated and VERY EXPENSIVE.
Considering the films I’ve got in my collection, which is almost 500, I have calculated to get them scanned in 4K and done properly would cost me £24,000 ($31,000).
That does not count postage and packaging.
Not to mention it could get damaged, destroyed or lost in transit.
I was once arguing with someone who was complaining on a 8mm video “why can’t you do the quality better?” When I tried to explain it was too expensive, so expensive you could get a pretty decent new car for that, he said that “$31,000? You won’t get any good cars with that”.
He also told me to take out a loan so I could transfer these films over.
It doesn’t work like that, you take out loans for a car or a house, not so you can scan some films!
He also told me again to send my films to a film transfer company in Munich, Germany despite the fact I live in England.
Needless to say some people have a serious lack of intelligence.
So… yeah… I would not recommend getting into this format as a hobby, videotape is far less painful to deal with.
Great content as always.
The only reason I could think of as to why this would drift is it doesn’t have a proper gate. It looks like it does engage the sprocket holes to move the film but it’s not keeping the film aligned in its aspect ratio. It’s cool, but we’re relying on digital to do analog’s job. At least it looks that way.
Well worth the $10! But not a penny more.
There's a massive gab in the market, you have this thing on low end and the Movie Stuff Retro scan on the other
If you can't find a used one (or other low price source) the exact same scanner is sold new as Eyesen Digital MovieMaker Pro and it comes with a 32GB card. I don't live in a large metropolitan area where one of these would show up in a thrift store. If you are scanning silent films with title cards, when you edit just save one frame of the title and duplicate it for however many seconds you want it on screen. That eliminates all the herky-jerky-bouncy text.
Domestic standard 8 film was all double 8 - ie sliced 16mm film.
Actually, there was one - Japanese I'm pretty sure - camera that used pre-slit: obviously you had to buy that manufacturer's film. I think it used a thinner base (polysomething rather than celluloid?), which was less forgiving. It was compatible at the projector point, though, unlike Super 8.
@@G6JPG Fufi made "Single 8", which was actually the same gauge as Super 8 - indeed I think Kodak took the format for it's super 8 stock.
Ben, I restore audio from damaged tape, vinyl, and shellac. Still amazed by results 18 years into it. I'd bet a cheap (or free?) visual restoration software would have cool presets to experiment cleaning up film faults.
I borrowed someone's and the problem I ran into is all the rolers scratched the film. I took a box and just let the film land into that instead of a takeup real and it stopped it from getting scratched. I had to help it through splices. I would give it a very light push. Parts of film where the sprockets were worn on one side I ran backwards through the projector and it helped a lot with the jumping on those parts. Then I fixed the picture on the computer for the pieces I ran that way. Not perfect and picture quality is limited but least I can watch them. None of mine had sound to begin with.
Not that there is a lot of precision built into this machine in the first place, but flipping the film around like that adds the thickness of the film to the focal point of the scanner. It may not seem like much but if the scanner is, say, 0.5" from the film's surface, and the thickness of the film is, say 10 mils, then you have created an error of (500+10)/500 = 2% error. That could be enough to screw up the focus. 8mm is bad enough as it is, but why add more error to the process?
The _"Up to 9 in reels"_ confused me for too long...
...Why not just put _"Up to 9 _*_inch_*_ reels"_ or even *_"9""_* ??
Hitting the OK button again should stop the recording. You shouldn’t have to turn it off to get it to stop.
24:22 "Real film hobbyists." What he means are hardened film buffs, people who have transferred their films to Beta, then VHS, and then DVD, and now pure digital.
So, in my experience with this (mine’s not a Wolverine, but it’s exactly the same machine otherwise), I’ve gotten a really consistent frame by adjusting the zoom slightly out so that I get a border around the picture and then I can just crop/stabilize everything in post since the frame, while consistent, still dances around a little (note: this does not account for shrunk or damaged film-that stuff will need to be done by whatever other means you have to hand, in my case scanning with a flatbed photo film scanner and splicing the frames together digitally).
Also of note, I can’t speak for commercially released films (since my experience to this point is basically entirely with amateur home movies from circa 1956-1983), but amateur shot 8mm runs at 16fps (confirmed this with some amateur footage of Nixon campaigning in Council Bluffs, Iowa in the early 1960s synced to disc audio excerpts). Super8 does consistently run at 18fps though.
Also also, I’m not sure if this is universal, but I ripped mine apart when I was trying to extract the film advance bit and it has an honest to god brushless DC motor driving that bit. The takeup is driven by a regular DC motor (brushes, noisy-you can hear when it kicks on while you’re doing a scan), but the frame advance is just a brushless DC motor (probably with a bunch of other electronics to make sure it moves precisely).
15:49 I recommend putting the sharpness as low as possible and sharpen it later with software (Premiere, Topaz Video AI, etc.).
Nice work. Do you have anything in colour you can run threw it, I’m curious to see how it handles white balance
10:55 There actually was Dual Super 8 sold on a spool. Fun stuff.
The one shown just before that is normal standard 8 film, which was 16mm: that's what the majority of std8 cameras used - you turned it over half way through; it was split down the middle during processing. (There was one make that actually used pre-slit, I think with a thinner base material - might have been Fuji.) I've never seen dual _Super_ 8: the whole point of Super 8 (although it had smaller holes so a bigger image too) was that it was preloaded into a cartridge, thus easier to use - much like 126 and 110 format ("Instamatic") still cameras.
I have the earlier 720p version and paid way more than $10 for it! It does take time and patience to use but the end result was sort of wonderful, way better than a professional transfer to VHS that I had done in the 1990s. I overscanned the transfer and did the final cropping with Premiere Pro for way more controllable results. The biggest drawback as far as I'm concerned is the undefeatable automatic gain control. Fades to black totally confounded the Wolverine and I had to recreate them all in the editing (which, needless to say, didn't look quite the same). I'd say the Wolverine is a pretty decent machine for the money. I wish they'd come out with a 16mm version (and lose the AGC)!
All else aside, there is a thing about 20 FPS. I used to project super 8 (for show 'visuals') and most often ended up @ 20 fps. Something to do with grain and flicker-fusion I guess.
Wolverine is a big company in Michigan
The product is made in China, of course (I think the company is Winait, at least for the basic machine), and sold under various names - Wolverine, Winait, Reflecta, and some own-brand machines.
27:52 Return to Monke
Early here :)
Hi, a question. Isn't this Pro version supposed to export an mp4 in HD (1080)? What is the concrete difference, apart from accepting larger reels and digitizing negative? Thanks
what i would like to see is less grain in the footage if you look at the prevue screen the picture is so much more clear so less compression would be nice for an updated dont need 4k just less grain and less compression
6:22 that’s what she said
OwO
Record sizes give her more and larger varieties...5" Golden (kids'), 7" 45rpm, 10" 78rpm, 12" LP, 16" transcription, or 20" Pathé
lolololololol
I’m more of a tape man myself-by the foot.
@@OddityArchive Sony L-750 😏
Can your camera you now use higher gb Sim cards?
Yes. My current camcorder will accept any SD card-at least, all the ones I’ve thrown at it to date.
That unit would have been $375 at our local Goodwill. They were selling a Guitar Hero guitar for.... $1000.00! WTH?
The nonprofit-industrial complex in action.
Cyberlink Power Director, from about Version 7 up to 20 can handle 4:3 Aspect Ratio images and, via CLPV facility, convert them to 16:9 Wide-Screen without horizontal stretching(making Benny-Boy look like he's been raiding the refidgerator at night. LOL) 21:49
I haven't had issues with Davinci resolve with 4:3 video.
if only they had a version that was maybe a grand more, I think so many things could be improved, eg proper rollers, better light source, camera etc. yeah its not a proper telecine I get it, but no real middle market exists its either low end crap like this then jumps straight to 50k units then to 500k units like a scanstation.
if only had a more pro version of this unit, more metal - less plastic, better sensor.. two small things would give an substantial upgrade, even if its 3x the price.
Love the show. Hate the deafening tone that plays at the beginning.
New bens junk!!!
I have the non-pro version of this. It's a truly awful machine out of the box. The torque of the take up reel is way too high and it doesn't work on larger reels. I fashioned a separate pulley and take-up feel holder to get it working a bit better, but it's still not good at consistently moving one frame a time with most of my family's Super 8 films. The film type slider needs to be somewhere in the middle to have the best chances of not slipping, and I needed to apply a few strips of tape to thicken up the lid above the arm thing that pulls the film through. Even with all of this it occasionally messes up. You're likely better off recording your projector with a modern phone. Not quite as high quality but good enough.
$10 is an insane deal though. The only comfort I had in purchasing mine was the resale value. I left it running overnight in the bedroom and it still took over 2 months to get most of the films. Compared to my parents preferred option of just not digitizing them this was an okay solution. Certainly cheaper, especially factoring in resale. I wish I'd just recorded with a good camera though.
You can zoom your frame way out and use a fancy piece of software I forgot the name of to automatically stabilize the framing. This makes splices basically invisible and does a lot for non-accumulated dust/wear.
The one day you forgot your smartphone..
I can't understand how that's so traumatizing..
Ben you live without your smartphone?
that's so weird...
I can be a bit of an old hippie that way.
I didn't carry mine everywhere with me. I now don't _have_ one! (I do usually carry a still/video _camera_ .)
It's the best there is at what it does, and what it does isn't very nice.
OK, maybe I do not understand it, but could you not get a good movie projector with a USB out and use that instead? At least then you would have sound and a better transfer. Plus, you could do it in real time instead of 2 frames per second. Or, do movie projectors with a USB out not exist?
As far as I know, no 8mm projectors are made anymore. I don’t think the precious few new projectors have any computer interface stuff, but i could be wrong about that.
Whatever the quality of the film, this is 60 year old footage being watched in modern times. Why don't you just enjoy it. What I don't understand about you guys is that you expect a 4K movie after the conversion. The grain, scratches and glitches is part of the nostalgia. Picking this unit up for $10, I would quietly move along, make my tweaks, and do my editing afterwards. Not intended for noobs, so send your family films off and have it done for $3000. I did all mine from 1962 , without one single problem, and I'm talking thousands of feet of film. You must know what you are doing , to achieve success. As far as I can see, there is no problem with your videos, even if you spent time doing them. Except off course that its not 4K ! Be happy with what you have for that price, and make it work. Let's go...
You're not really saying anything I didn't already say in the video. My concerns lie with the average person blindly entrusting their sole surviving home movies with it. I'm sure I'll use it again for OA at some point.
Good 8mm material - certainly super 8, but even most Standard 8 - _is_ capable of - not sure about 4K, but certainly somewhat more than 1080p, so you want at least that to get the most out of it.
Depends what you're trying to do: if, as in a lot of cases, you just want to see something you otherwise wouldn't (without finding a projector, and that's no good for sharing with someone at a distance from you), then what you say is true. If you want to get the best out of it, and I don't mean to the extent of a real film buff, 1080+ _is_ needed.
32 GB cards can be had for less than $15.
Ronald Martin Popeil or
Ron Popeil
The inventor of the showtime rotisserie oven.
Side note: it works very well.
For a device like this to work in Australia, NZ, Britain or much of Europe, it would have to run to the PAL-equivalent standard of 25 frames per second.
No. Standard 8 ran at 16 (within clockwork tolerances), silent super 8 at 18, whatever country you are in. Which is what you want the files to be set to when playing back on the computer. For some reason the files the machine makes are 20 (30 on the earlier model). You can easily fix that in most video playing software. The only time you'd need 25 (really 50 interlaced) is if using the video out socket to an ordinary telly; I presume the unit does a crude conversion to that. (I've not seen any PAL/NTSC control in the menus, so I presume it's fixed for the country it's sold in; the colour coding would be more critical than the frame rate, I suspect, unless you're dealing with B/W material.)
Cheeky😂❤❤❤
You got this for $10 are u kidding me!!!! How could you even complain one bit!
They are $249-300
$10 I would have went nuts finding that!
It does a really good job’
Even at $250 if you run video though a video editing program after it cleans it up a lot!
For $250 I’m happy with mine’
For $10 you’d make a killing converting for people!
What most forget this isn’t 2022 4k film 😂
This is 1960-70s film for what it does 100% worth it!
Agreed, deep envy on the $10 find.
But I don't quite agree with your "this isn't 2022 4k film". OK, it might not quite reach 4K, but good 8mm material, properly focused, exposed, and processed, especially Super 8, is certainly capable of exceeding 1080p.
@@G6JPG you read that wrong 🤣
I was meaning any 8/16mm film reel isn’t 2022-2023
“4k resolution quality” type video
It’s 1960s old quality media lol
But with the name WOLVERINE..
That product should have spring locked claws.. ready to spring out..
And call everyone Bub.. like wolverine should do. From the X-Men.