DigitNow MovieMakerPro 1080P 8mm & Super 8 Film Scanner Breakdown & Review w/ Results | Filmboy24 

My pleasure, thanks so much for watching!!

That's awesome to hear, Paul! I think that's exactly what these little machines should be used for.

Thanks so much!!

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Good eye, I was wondering if anyone would catch that 😉

Thank you for the info!!

Thanks, Pop!!

You know, Dave, I really don't mind the overall quality of these little Pro machines either. I honestly think they do a pretty fair job for a budget option and definitely fine for sharing films with friends/family.

Mine had problems from the get go and there is no warranty or support. Lost my money so be careful.

[I had a Wolverine, too] One of the "features" (design flaws) is that only one reel is motorized, and there's no clutch. [Reel-to-reel tape decks and movie projectors can send power to either or both reels (so you don't have to swap reels to rewind). And, there's a clutch to provide fairly low tension to the take-up reel when "playing". The clutch is bypassed for fast winding. These converters have no variation in tension between playing and fast-winding. It's no big deal to swap the reels to rewind, but the fixed tension is a problem. To have enough tension to fast wind (even with no braking on the other reel), it has too much tension for playing. Because there's so much tension, the converter has trouble registering/framing each frame. [Like a movie projector, the film is advanced one frame at a time, and the film stops with one frame lined up at the gate for it to be converted to a digital frame. There's an adjustment for the force on the film at the gate, but, to get it to work, the force is brutal - and the framing tends to drift.] I found it best to ease up on the gate force and to just let the film feed into a clean bowl on the floor next to the desk that the converter sat on. I removed all splices and separated all of the spliced reels and appended the .mp4 files with FFMPEG. [Many of the films that I converted were on 7" reels, and the converter could handle only 5" reels, so I had to split the spliced movies anyway.] One also has to fix the frame rate because film rates aren't the same as video. [The converter just copies each frame one-to-one to the digital file, but the video frame rate is that of normal digital video rather than the original (film) rate. And, because the input and output frame rates aren't evenly divisible, extra copies of some frames are inserted to pad things (by FFMPEG). And, FFMPEG, coming from the UNIX/POSIX/Linux world, is very user-unfriendly. [I like to call designs like this Calvinist. -They're designed to punish the user.] Abbreviate a time value? FFMPEG will get it wrong. Append one video to another with the exact same frame rate, and FFMPEG will set the frame rate on the output file to something completely different. It took a LOT of experimenting to get FFMPEG to do the right thing. -And, with no graphical interface, editing (trimming the beginning / end and separating unrelated scenes) took a lot of guessing/repeated attempts. I took extensive notes and included them when I finished my home videos and donated the converter to a library that has a do-it-yourself photo/film conversion studio. [Last time I looked, they still hadn't made it available. I suspect that they decided that it can't be handled by mere mortals.]

Thanks, Christian! Yep, definitely a lot of yellow tone came through on the positive film. I probably could've done a better job with the color grading but...yeah...😆 I long for the day I make a 16mm feature. Funny, my older brother was visiting the other day and asking just what it would take to get that accomplished. A great story, a lot of work and dedication, a little $$ and a whole lot of help, I told him. I have a few of those knocked out, just need to piece the rest together 😉

@@Filmboy24 Well I would start on a 16mm film (doesn't need to be a full feature) at this very moment if I could. I work my butt off as a musician and I just can't manage to have the time or the money at the moment. Times are hard. Hopefully I will be able to get a much better paid job soon and make some cash. Add to that the fact that every single person who could greatly contribute with their skills is located in the US. Hopefully one day before I get too old.... I would love seeing you working on such an endeavor. It is very hard getting it off the ground, that's why you almost never see it from a member of the 8mm and 16mm film community, except for Emil, who is just adding the finishing touches to his latest feature film.

@@truefilm6991 You're absolutely right, my friend. Making a "real" film is such a huge undertaking. I've produced a lot of short movies and even those are big undertakings. I've wanted to shoot a feature film, on film, for over 30 years now and just never have. Probably more about excuses for me than anything but I do keep dreaming 😃

Thanks, Dale!! Great advice on cleaning the film. I've actually done the same thing you mentioned and "cleaned" off some of the color. Not good! I only do a light cleaning if absolutely necessary.

I am think the problem you had with the film jumping which you had to fix with Davinci I would have returned as faulty as either the stepper motor tension was wrong or the gate pressure to high or low. You should be able to take the file and show it without having to process it, your idea to use it for dailys would require this straight out of the machine approach. You should return this to Digitnow and get them to send you another to see if this is just that machine or are they all like that Great channel.

Thanks, Robert! I have had similar problems with both of my Wolverine units. I’m thinking it’s the tiny advance pin and the fact that nothing really keeps the film completely flat/stable while a photo is taken. The pressure plate does an ok job but I definitely think it could be improved.

I have now ordered one of these units at this price it will allow me to get all my super8 and regular 8 on digital if I need any of it I can that done professionally by my friend and ex BBC telecine engineer who run a a great outfit in London called The Flying Spot.

@@robmay3570 That's awesome, Robert!!

Hi Mike I have known got my movie maker pro and straight out of the box the results are rock steady not needing anything doing to them except speed correction if required. So anyone getting one of these that the results are not rock steady return it as faulty. I will be scanning my whole collection. you can run the results on your phone. many thanks for your excellent channel.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with this machine, they're definitely hit & miss for sure. It would be awesome if there were a middle grade scanner in the $1K range, I think those would sell themselves. If you feel like it, send me an email at filmboy24@gmail.com, I have been using the Moviestuff RetroScan Universal 2K scanner for several years now. I scan film for people all the time and at about half the price of what you mentioned. Thanks again!!

I can't disagree with you on that, Paul!!

Thanks, Dave!! Yes, unfortunately there's likely always going to be jittering with these little scanners. I will say this, most film scanners (even professional ones) have that problem. The thing is, the higher end scanners' software is so much better that it's usually solved before the final render.

Yes, definitely not top of the line by any means but as you said, probably better than shooting off the wall. I will say that even my MovieStuff RetroScan unit can give you some light bleed in real dark scenes and I almost always have to stabilize in post. The picture quality is night and day different though. Thanks for watching, I appreciate it!!

You MUST correctly FORMAT the Correct SD card to get rid of jitter!!!

Thanks, yes, as I mentioned in my post, I had made sure that the correct card type and formatting had been done. Thank goodness for post production fixes! @MrmelodyUs

If yours is like mine, the vertical jitter is caused by the excessive tension on the take-up reel. -Because there's no bypassable clutch; for fast wind to work, they have too much tension in "play" mode. As mentioned in my reply to another reply, I just fed the film into a clean bowl on the floor next to the desk that the converter sat on. That way, no excessive take-up tension to screw up frame registration - and no jitter. [I have no idea how the SD card format could possibly cause jitter.]

@@larrycamilli9589thanks. But I have tried transferring the film without the take up reel, letting it pool up into a box. I’ve gotten the same results. Personally, I think the unit needs more than one claw to register the film in place as it is held in the gate. Luckily, I’m a Vfx artist so I can fix all of that in post.

🤣 Thanks, SciGuy!!

Thanks!! You're absolutely right, wondering if anyone would catch that. It's clear that these machines all likely use the same software for their individually branded units. I have both of the Wolverine units as well as this one and in all honesty, I really couldn't tell a difference in image quality between this and the Wolverine Pro.

@@Filmboy24 Thx for the help ✨ And quick answer :)

Thank you Tim! I would experiment a little bit with the takeup. It's been my experience that the smaller the reel (on both sides), the smoother everything runs. There have even been people that felt like their machines ran a lot better with simply letting the takeup side fall into a cardboard box, rather than onto a reel, then wind it back on when it's finished. Not sure I would do that personally, but I've seen a few people do it.You can pick up 200' (5" diameter) plastic reels on Amazon or Ebay pretty cheap. If I had a bunch of 9" reels to convert, I'd transfer them onto 2 5" reels first. There should be splices in your films at roughly every 25' (8mm) or 50' (super 8). These would be ideal cutting points. I would spool onto a takeup reel and with a cotton glove on, feel the film as it spools. You'll know when you hit a splice, just keep track of them. You may have to use 3 reels but sometimes you can get away with only 2. Best of luck and have fun with it!!

@@Filmboy24 Thanks for getting back to me. I will convert small reels I have and then order some extra 5 inch reels to transfer the 9 inch reels. You confirmed my thoughts and gave me insight on how to find the splices. Thanks again.

@@user-db2ku4ct1r My pleasure!!

Hi Debra, thank you for your kind words!! Yes, I do scan regularly for clients. The short answer is, I charge $10 per 50' reel for 2K transfers. Please feel free to email me at filmboy24@gmail.com for more details :)

Unfortunately, it does not extract audio from film. Very few scanners anywhere will do that. I do it now with my RetroSync unit.

Hi Kurt, thanks for watching, I appreciate it!! The finished file sizes are pretty small, usually between 200-250mb each. That being said, a 32GB card could potentially hold somewhere around 140 individual 50' scans, which is obviously plenty for what you have to scan. I'm honestly not sure what happens when you reach capacity on the card as I've never gotten that far but I don't think it'll record over previous scans.

@@Filmboy24 Thanks for your quick response! My dad has stage 4 cancer and trying to get them done prior to Christmas so we can enjoy watching with him

Hmmm, hard to say. I can tell you that the output file on these machines is 20 FPS, so if you shot your film at 18 FPS, it might look a little fast.

Hi Chris, I personally use Vegas Pro but there are a lot of different ones out there. Really depends on whether you want to buy a program or use a free one and how much editing you plan on doing.

Nice! That will definitely save you some time, especially with how slow these little machines rewind.

You're right about the manual settings, it would make a world of difference in these little things. I'm not an engineering guy but it does seem that most of the hard work is done (advance frame, take a picture), so firmware updates could now be done periodically with add on features. Like you said, the ability to compile a series of images for import into your editing software would be a great start. My Retroscan software lets you import Jpeg, TIFF, BMP or PNG image sequences. I love it!

Unfortunately, they do not.

LOL, Thanks, Frank!! That roll was in my freezer but to be honest, I have no idea when I got it. I processed another roll of V3 50D with this one and it had an edge code of 2012, this one didn't have any. I presume it was newer but I'm really not sure. I have so much film everywhere that I have no idea when/where I got most of it anymore.🤣 I do imagine that if I ran a new roll of 50D through this scanner that was professionally processed, it would probably do a much better job.

Unfortunately, there's no label on the card, so I'm not sure.

@@Filmboy24 ... thanks for replying. Its rather strange that there's not even any reference to the SD card in the user manual Accessories section on page 15, but as you say there's no label on the card !!

I have to say, this be never heard of this problem before. Make sure your SD card isn’t corrupt and that it’s 32GB maximum. Always insert the SD card before powering the unit on also. These little machines are certainly not fast and unfortunately, you do have to sit with them most of the time.

@Filmboy24 thanks for your response. I have been making sure I hit record. It's flashing the red dot like it is, but when I go to watch it when it's finished it's just a few different thumbnails. Isn't it supposed to be just one long clip? Like the reel? That's what I'm wanting. It's a brand new 32 gig SD card. These things are so old and fragile that I'm trying to get it right the first time since there's no guaranteed second time. 😅 Some are at least 49 years old.

@@Your.mom.goes.to.college Yes, those thumbnail should be your files. You should be able to transfer those to your computer, double click them and watch your movies. You should also be able to go to the "Playback" selection on your scanner and click OK to view the saved files as well. Have you tried this?

@Filmboy24 yes. I can watch it on the machine or when I put it in the computer. I just don't understand why it makes several individual clips vs. one entire one for that 1 film. I may have got it right last night. The entire clip on my last one was about 2:40 and a 3" inch reel is 3 minutes, so that made me feel a little better that I did something right.

I'm just letting you know that I'm all finished with the movies I had from childhood. There was a bit of a learning curve and some little tricks I learned along the way. I just wanted to let you know I figured out why I would have several little clips early on. So apparently, anytime you try to make an adjustment such as exposure or frame adjust that it starts a new recording. So I realized I'd have to back up a little if I wanted those first few seconds in the recording after I got it how I wanted. Thanks for all your help.

Thank you Soren!! I’m pretty sure these are simply re-branded Wolverine Pro scanners, hence the quick Wolverine flash in the software. I don’t have the CMOS information unfortunately, only what is listed in their product description. Thank you again for your support!!

Really? For a Regular or Super 8 movie film camera? You sure about that? For video, of course, 25fps, but film? Ok. You probably live there.

@@johnnycaps1 I do live here in Australia. As far as I'm aware. be it film or video, the frame rate for smooth motion has always been 25fps.

Here's a direct link to them on Amazon: amzn.to/478SYjd

Nope

Hey Tony, unfortunately that's not possible. You have to record directly to the SD card first.

@@Filmboy24 so why include a USB cable?

@@tonydecotiis the USB cable is to offload what's on the SD card (without removing it from the scanner) onto your computer. Obviously it's not needed if you have an SD card reader in your computer.

@@Filmboy24 I gather the other cable for the TV is for the same purpose from your SD card in the projector to the TV?

​@@tonydecotiis yes, it is used for your TV or monitor as you're scanning and recording. I believe you can also use it as playback from the SD card to TV (never tried this part but I don't know why you couldn't).

Most scanners don't transfer sound.

Roberto Trombetti - These may be "just toys", but they're better than nothing and resulting in having precious old movies deteriorate to destruction. Professional digitizing services cost $$$$$.

That sounds unusual for sure and not normal. If you have this exact unit, try this number: digitnow.com/pages/returns

You have a good point and I've often wondered why there was nothing in the middle. Maybe the demand just isn't there, as most scanners are probably used for a family project, then never touched again. I think most people simply send their collections off to a shop. I know there have been some pretty decent DIY scanners, using 4K cameras that produced pretty nice results. On a side note regarding your Bauer (I think you mean Bauer, not Braun) S708XL, I couldn't agree more. I used, almost exclusively, my Bauer S715XL super 8 camera throughout the 90s and it produced awesome images. Wish I'd never sold it :(

That explains a lot!! 🤣

😂😂

Perhaps you didn't have the RU-vid sound turned on. @Filmboy24 did mention it in the audio about the "sound" or lack thereof. @7:05

Hey Jon, you can scan sound film in these units but it will capture picture only. There are very few scanners that will capture that mag track during initial scan. I now use the RetroScan Universal along with the RetroSync unit for sound film but it's 2 different processes.

@@Filmboy24 yes that’s what I meant. You have to spend considerably more for a scanner that will also playback both sound stripes as well as capturing the image.

@The Celluloid Alchemist very sad they didn't fix the major issue of that scanner that is very bad image compression. They should allow to extract raw or un compressed BMP image files and let people compress the video with a proper computer.

😂

Thanks for the info, it'll be interesting to hear how the bearings work out.

Hi Mike , Today I received the needle-bearings, not the one I ordered , but usable , after the modification I was very happy with the results, jitters gone, the take-up reel moves smoothly, and I have the feeling that the machine runs more smoothly then before, and you know !!! all the materials for the modification are available in most of the ( D I Y) hardware-stores and costs no more then € 25-30 , with a little bit of Tech. feeling is it not to difficult, I think I'm gonna make a workflow-sheet and make it available for people who like to modify the Movimaker Pro .

@@James-rp3fc That's great news! If you want, feel free to post it in a new comment here also if you'd like. I appreciate your updates!!

@@Filmboy24 Hi Mike! , I have to put my modification(s) “on holdl” , because the scanner went completely “dead” yesterday, I had to send it back , and hope to get a new one , somewhere next week. I keep you posted!

@@James-rp3fc Oh no!! OK, well keep me posted, thanks!

Terry Chootiyaa - They all look cheap. But these are a godsend in saving old home movie images before they deteriorate to rubbish. Professional digitizing services are $$$$$. If I can successfully copy/digitize and share some of my home movies it will be worth it to me and my family.