8mm & Super 8 Reels to Digital Film Scanner Converter

Someone else wrote to put the instruction manual under the front of the device - and I agree that helps when pushing the buttons. Some other tips I have for Novice 8mm Home Movie Converters: * SD card - tape down the locking tab on the SD card. my first time trying to record I got the message that the SD Card was not available. I formatted and tried again. I ejected the SD card - and realized the SD card tab was in the "locked" position. Flipped to unlocked, reinserted and tried again - Same message. Ejected the card to replace with another I had - and noticed the tab was in the lock position again. So I applied a piece of cellophane tape over the notch tightly so that the tab could not move - reinserted the card, and was able to start recording. * Clean the foot the film runs through after running each reel. Dust and particles will need to be cleaned off the foot that holds the film in place as it passes to capture the images. A cloth and a "puff brush" are provided and are helpful, but I also used cotton buds (make sure they are the tight, hard tip type, so as not to introduce loose fibers) to wipe the path clean. They also come in handy to help feed the film under the clips in the foot mechanism. * Use the mechanism to open AND close the foot over the film - don't just click closed. It's only plastic, you'll wear out the clip. * If you have a shorter reel - use that one first - I ran my first reel a few times to get the hang of positioning * This takes long. It's taking a individual image of each frame. A three minute reel will take 30 minutes to complete. I included a video clip to show how s-l-o-w this runs. It is taking a shot of each frame - and these films in a projector would run at 15 frames per second. * You will need to babysit and stay with the device during the process. You can't walk away for a while and expect to come back when it's near done. I had a leader (the white part that feeds through before the film starts) break off as it was going into the foot, and had spliced film get stuck a few times because it was not spliced well. Plus just checking on your home movies while running thru gives you a chance to figure out how you want to edit once you have it in it's digital format, jot notes of what music would be great in the background. These YOUR family memories, and the advantage of doing yourself is putting correct period music (or sound effects) to your family stories. Something that would not happen if you send off to get processed. After Processing Once I had the reel processed - I left the SD Card in and opted to use the USB transfer cable to copy over to my Windows laptop. Once on my laptop, I was going to use the highly recommended OSB Studio (free) - but found it a little too much of a learning curve for my use. I was able to get great results using Microsoft's ClipChamp (free version) that has an easy and pretty intuitive interface to drag and drop my clips and then add titles, transitions, sound, and other effects. Exporting to 720p was plenty of resolution to enjoy up on my 50" TV at home. I was fortunate that my old movies were stored in a cool (and dry) back corner of a garage. My 8mm reels were in pretty good condition and the film itself did not show cracks, splits or broken sprocket holes. If your film has issues - the conversion may not go as smoothly as mine did. Hope this info is helpful to someone who wants to convert those old home movies!

I had a box of '60s 8mm home movies and a projector, but the bulb burned out and the replacement was over $200 if available. I decided to give this digitizer a try before contracting with one of the many commercial ventures that digitize. Given that these were amateur-shot, quality was not that good to begin with, so a low cost alternative was inviting. I have to say that this machine did a fairly decent job digitizing them. If you are in a hurry, this is not the choice for you. I never officially timed it, but I estimate it takes at least 30 minutes for a single 3-4 minute film. That said, the scanning output quality is adequate for what my movies are. I left most settings at default. I did try the higher quality scan, but I actually thought it looked grainier than the standard. I did have to make adjustments to the framing a few times, but that is expected. Cons as I see them: Loading film through the scan path is challenging as there are 3 tabs the film must be slid under. There are pricier ones on the market that appear to have a better loading path. Take-up side sometimes wouldn't hold the reel tightly, sometimes coming loose. Supply reel has no braking so my film would unravel if I didn't set a piece of cardboard against it to brake slightly. Rewind function is slow and suffers from the loose reels. In my case, I just used my old projector to rewind and I could scan another reel while rewinding. The supplied air duster was nearly useless. Fortunately, I had my own. It is rather noisy. Not a problem for me as I worked in a separate room. All in all, I am glad I bought it. I'll digitize all my film then resell to someone who wants to do the same and recoup some of my investment.

I've ordered two of these units now. The first one was missing the reel adaptors and neither of the units work well, as they create a very shaky image. I believe the issue is that I'm transferring Super 8 film. The unit is built for regular 8mm, but they provide reel adaptors so that you can also use Super 8 film Unfortunately, the adaptors aren't snug enough, so the transfer is unacceptably jittery. I've tried various fixes, googled and watched YouTube videos, etc. Nothing works. The unit might work well for regular 8 footage, as it's built for that and you don't need reel/sprocket adapters. The 8mm reels fit snugly, as they should, so I'd expect a lot less wobble. All of the rave reviews are likely from folks transferring regular 8, not super 8. Pros: exposure and sharpness of the image is good. There are a few people selling reel adaptors that I could've tried, but didn't want to spend good money after bad. If you're the handy sort you might be able to McGyver this.

Good product. Works perfectly. Definitely time consuming. You need to babysit in case a splice gets caught. My grandpa took good care of his films. Easy to use. I only have a basic program so besides croping and trimming I can't change the look much. I recommend highly. EDIT 12/21/25 THE MACHINE STOPPED WORKING. Stuck on Wolverine logo screen. I emailed company and I am waiting for reply. I'm 2 9inch reels away from completing my project. Update 12/23/25: Company contacted and I was told they are going replace faulty machine. Back to five stars. Update 12/28/25 recieved replacement and it's quieter and works great.

Had this brand less, Film Scanner Digitizer with 2.4" Screen, converter for 1 week. We've converted about 25 8mm & Super 8mms so far. There is definitely a learning curve, even for those who are tech savvy. If you can, plug directly into an extra TV so you will see EXACTLY what you will be recording. The ability to perfectly X-Y-Z Adjust is nearly impossible on the tiny screen. I highly suggest digging out the old TV with the yellow jack inputs to get the best result the first time. We've had to redo many videos because the unit advances 2-4 mm with every press of the "Menu" button. The older the film, the grainier the outcome. That is NOT this machines fault. It's merely the way "analog" film was back then. Sharpening the video does very little. More current videos are actually recorded rather nicely! The unit is front heavy, meaning you'll need to use the owners manual to keep it upright, which works perfectly well. It actually works as a "shock" absorber should you be in an environment where the floor is rather "giving", like me who is in an RV. WORST COMPLAINT is... it corrupts SD cards about every 10 conversions, even if you Format every handful couple of times. Yeah, you read that right. Formatting is to avoid corruption, not create it. This chronic problem is not very cost effective for the price tag. (No, our SD Card Adapters were not on "Lock" either. ) Would I suggest this product, no, not really. But being the only one available for consumer purchase, it really doesn't matter what I have to say, does it.

I had some old 8 mm films that I needed to digitize. Have been looking at this model and a few others recently. Prices have stayed up for years. So decided to get this one to get the film transferred. I could mail off to a service, but prefer to do things myself, and not risk losing films in the mail. Follow the simple directions, easy to thread through the slots. Records the video directly to the included SD memory card. Great device, worked well. Is made of plastic, so be gentle. It is not metal like the old fashioned models of many years ago, or the old projectors. But if taken care of, you will have no issues. One of my reel adapters was cracker from shipping, but did not need it. Motor is gentle, not a lot of torque so a modified taped adapter will work just as well. I can tape or glue it if I need it. No big deal, but was disappointed in that one part. Records, and when done, you rewind all in one process. My film was in good shape, so if your film is cracked and broken, it could struggle to jog to each frame. This device captures each frame, one at a time, and creates the MPG video file for you. Overall nice product.

I bought the W******* brand 8MM film scanner first. We liked the unit well enough to get a second for a relative. This particular no-name was a little cheaper, but looked pretty much identical (and came with an SD memory card), so I bought one. What did I learn? The unit did come with a 32GB SD memory card, though the card was completely without any label. Similarly, the scanner unit has no actual branding. The memory card worked just fine, though I can't vouch to the actual speed of the card. The scanner was in fact nearly identical (except for color) to the W******* brand unit. We were able to scan a film and the results were perfectly fine. However... This no-name unit has no "feet" under the front of the control/scan protrusion. That means if you press a control button without bracing the unit, you tip it over. The spindle size adapters are much thinner plastic. They don't fit the shafts very well. The adapters can be hard (to the point of concern they might break) to get on and off. The poor fit of the adapters means that "wide hole" reels wobble back and forth as they spin. The Control Panel has "Left" and "Right" arrow buttons (which are "Up" and "Down" on the W******* unit). That doesn't make much sense since all the menu items require moving up or down. Also, some of the messages on the screen were poorly translated to English and can be confusing. The 3 tiny tabs that hold the film as it moves over the scan area are hard to see because 2 are black, like the the surrounding area, and only one is white. The W******** brand unit has all three painted white. Most importantly, the tiny sprocket that drives the film forward is not mounted quite high enough. The protruding "tooth" that engages the holes in the film barely does so. Several times I had a test film fail to advance because the sprocket didn't engage the film properly. Neither my initial W******** unit, or the second I bought to replace this no-name unit, had this problem. If you absolutely need to save a few dollars, this no-name scanner will work for many films and it does seem to produce reasonable results. However, it is frustrating to use. It may fail to feed bent or stiff films. The spindle adapters seem likely to break (and I have no idea if replacements can be acquired).

If you’re looking for a way to convert your family’s old 8mm reels to digital files / or have them easily accessible on your computer especially on the cloud so you can watch them virtually ANYWHERE and without giving up one of your kidneys to pay for all of your film reels to be sent out and digitalized one by one!! (Especially if you just happened to come across old family reels like we did in an attic and had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT WAS ON ANY OF THEM!) Well then, this is your golden ticket to saving a buck while also enjoying the process! This device comes with everything you could need for the process. Along with a 32 gig SD card that the device stores each recording on with easy access via any SD card to computer plug in like the usb/ SD/ flash drive connector to MacBook like we needed, obviously that was sold separately). It also has a plug in the back complete with the cord if you want to view the frame by frame of the film on a larger screen or TV. And it also has a usb for possible saving right to a computer instead of SD card (we couldn’t figure that one out so we just used the SD card option as it seemed easiest.) The filming is super easy! Thread it through and make sure to read the instructions! We also looked up a YouTube tutorial to get a better idea since we weren’t of the era of 8mm films! Only vhs tapes. Lol BUT JUST SO YOU KNOW… it only comes with 1 small reel to transfer your family reel/ film on to. We had to order a larger one (that you see in the video) from eBay in order to fully record all of the reel without stopping the recording. So just be mindful if your family film fits on a whole 4-5inch reel, if it is almost or close to completely filling the old family reels, then it may be a better idea just to order a huge transfer reel as we did (as seen in video) of 7” or so you can record non stop without any issues of overfilling the transfer reel on right and having to figure out what you’ll do next. WE SAY THIS BECAUSE… Once you stop the recording for ANY reason… you automatically begin a new recording file once you press play again. **SO KEEP THAT IN MIND** it may be nice to play back whatever you’ve recorded BUT it’ll be better just to let it run its course or you’ll have 10+ short clips of the same reel because you couldn’t keep your composure while it was recording. Ultimately we couldn’t believe the ease of this device once we figured out how to use it. It’s a good idea to read the manual because it may not be rocket science but sometimes you DON’T actually know, and it’s better to make sure than to mess your precious family reels up! (: Highly suggest this device even though it is a couple hundred dollar investment… but we recommend you go for it especially if you want to save some money in the long run and have a great useful /practical device. When companies charge $25 per reel to convert dependent on size of reel or length of film it can add up, plus you truly never know what can possibly happen if you send them out. We personally wouldn’t take the chance and would rather be responsible for messing something up on our own rather than to have something this valuable to our family end up lost in the mail or god forbid it gets ruined in route DO IT YOURSELF! We highly recommend this product! It has been fun for our family and we are sure it’ll be for you as well. GOOD LUCK! And thank you to the seller!