KODAK REELS 8mm & Super 8 Films Digitizer Converter with Big 5” Screen, Scanner Converts Film Frame by Frame to Digital MP4 Files for Viewing, Sharing & Saving on SD Card for 3” 4” 5” 7” and 9” Reels

This thing is awesome. A real work horse, and simple to use. I had originally bought the Wolverine version of this and just was not happy with it. The viewing screen was too small and angled down so I had to hunch over in my chair to see the image. You could not adjust the image position, focus, brightness, etc. in real time. The Kodak Reels has a large 5" screen that is easily viewable. You can adjust the image on the screen in real time. It does both 8mm and Super8. I have probably digitized 12 3-minute reels and 4 10-minute reels of 8mm and 7 3-minute reels of Super8. Just make sure the film is clean. Some of mine were dirty or moldy. I put the reels on Rewind and held a cleaning cloth (like for eyeglasses) on them while they passed thru. Once you have your image set, you can pretty much just let it run. It DOES take a LOOOOONG time, but that is the nature of digitizing. 8mm is like 15-20 frames per second, so a three minute film is at least 2700 images and it takes a picture of each image. A 3-minute film takes about 30 minutes to digitize. Kodak Reels is easy to operate, download to your computer. The menus are simple and easy to use. The buttons are kind of clunky, but not really an issue. Definitely recommend!

This digitizer delivers outstanding, clear results! But you’ll need to pay attention to it while running.I have a film library of about 20 large (7” reels, 400 feet of film each) Super-8mm film reels plus a few regular 8mm. These were all produced by me in the 60’s and 70’s before the advent of video. Most of them were produced with loosely-sync’d sound tracks on a tape recorder to provide audiences of my sporting activities with memorable performances. In 1978, I converted them to VHS using a rear-projection screen and recording to tape with a high-end industrial video camera. The results were okay, but clarity was severely reduced, plus there was a flak-storm of dust particles on the film that only appeared worse on the VHS tape. It took many years, but I finally found a better solution.This Kodak digitizer produces viewing results that are much, much clearer. This is not equal to modern digital cameras, so don’t expect what you see on your Smartphone these days. But, given that you’re starting with Super-8mm film that has a picture width of way less than a quarter of an inch of 60-year old consumer film, the clarity is astounding!This is why I bought the Kodak product. It has a digital camera that has over 8 megapixel resolution, all focused in on this tiny square of film. All the competitive products in this range (most of which are identical to each other, with just different brand names), have cameras with only 3.5 mp resolution. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT: THE CLEAREST AND BEST IMAGES FOR YOUR YEARS OF MEMORIES! This is more important that putting up with some minor annoyances during the recording process. Which is fortunate, because the Kodak does have a few behaviors which might annoy you. Fortunately, I have some suggestions for you.SUGGESTIONSFirst, be sure to read and follow the Owner’s Manual, plus a number of YouTube tutorials. Otherwise, you might miss important tips like ensuring that the film is loaded beneath all four (2 on your side and 2 on the far side of the film) little black metal tabs; failing to do so will result in woefully blurry images.Second, keep the camera window clean. You can use a lint-free rag, but I prefer a shot of compressed air from a dust-off can, which can be applied both before and during processing.Third, take the time to study how the machine works. I’ve been running projectors since I was a member of the A/V club in high school, but some of this old film technology might be new to you. Film is moved through the machine by a motorized sprocket (think of the pedal sprocket on a bicycle) with a single pin (sadly, not 2 or 3) which rises up, engages a square hole in the edge of your film, moves forward exactly one frame, drops down, and returns to its starting position. This is the “clatter” that you hear with a projector. Each time a new frame is held stationary in the exact position, the Kodak camera snaps a high-quality image of it for storage on your SD card. At about 2 frames per second, it will take about 10x the movie time to process (yes, about half an hour for a 3” reel and five hours for a full 7” reel).Film from the lefthand (supply) reel is fed to the sprocket mechanism; be sure not to cause any interference or drag on this, or the sprocket may fail to feed forward. Similarly, the righthand (take-up) reel maintains a light but steady pull to bring the processed film from the sprocket up onto and around the reel; this film goes through a labyrinth of 4 grey plastic posts to smooth out the clatter and jerks to prevent wear on the machine or jiggling the camera image.Problem #1 and solution. The machine sometimes spills film all over the floor because the take-up reel doesn’t have enough power. This happened badly on the first product they sent me because it had a partially-defective take-up motor drive. Gladly, Amazon and the vendor were terrific in acknowledging the problem and immediately sending me a replacement which worked MUCH better! For you, this may not be a problem if you use 3” or 5” reels. But about half way through my 7” reels, reel-pauses and spills can occur because with a larger diameter of tape acting as a pulley, it has less torque. My tip helped considerably: reroute the film so that it skips grey post #3; with less friction, the take-up motor can more easily prevent pauses and spills. Pauses are more likely to happen near splices, which place extra drag on the film. Keep an eye on things during the process (see below).Problem #2 and solution. Even on unspliced film, with any size reel, the sprocket mechanism can decide to stop advancing the film. Keep on the lookout for this and when it happens, lightly grasp the film with your thumb and forefinger just to the right of the sprocket and tug it very gently to get moving again. Yeah, annoying, but it’s worth putting up with for the high-clarity results of the Kodak camera vs other brands. If it stops long enough to be a problem with your finished results (family viewing of grandma may not be a bother if there’s a brief stoppage, but it might matter with other audiences), you can either stop & restart the recording and use your video editing program to join the program on either side of the stoppage, or I use Adobe Premiere Pro (available from Amazon) to just remove the stopped frames.So, the good news is that you will end up with higher quality and clarity images than with other products. The bad news is that you can’t just start the machine and let it run by itself for hours. I set it up on the side of my desk while I’m working or playing on my PC. Keep it well-illuminated and make it easier to spot pauses or spills by using white background paper and white tape on the Kodak below the grey guide posts; also white tape patches on the righthand reel to more quickly show that it is stopped. Listen, and you will hear it when it starts to misbehave.If you aren’t patient enough to do this, then get a different brand. But if you want the best quality, get this Kodak!That’s all you need if you are just showing movies of grandma when you were a baby. But if you want to produce much better movies, do the following.One: use Adobe Premiere Pro (from Amazon) or similar to slow down the frame rate in your finished version. Super-8mm was shot at 18 frames pers second (FPS), and 8mm at 16. The Kodak (and others) output at 20 FPS. This will show up as slightly faster/jerkier on playback. Use your video editor to change it down to its original.Two: get rid of the dust. That flak-storm of spots and flakes can be very distracting. There are three ways. A clever person could rig up a long hose to an air compressor and aim two tiny jets across the top and bottom of the film before it reaches the sprocket mechanism and camera. Or, you could rig up some cleaning pads with professional-grade film cleaner ahead of the sprocket (I don’t recommend this because of the added drag on the sprocket mechanism and the chance that accumulating dust could badly scratch your film). The best solution is to again use a good video program like Amazon’s Adobe Premier Pro and an add-in called NeatVideo which magically get rid of nearly all the dust. It’s great!Conclusion: If you are willing to take your time and do it right, this Kodak digitizer will give you excellent results! With it’s far superior camera, I’d certainly choose it over the competitors.

I priced out having a photo service transfer all of my parents 8mm videos to digital. Since we had a large quantity of these to do, it was more cost effective to purchase this Kodak unit and make the digital copies myself rather than having the local photoshop do the conversion. I am on about my 25th film reel and have had no issues with the unit. It occassionally will make some noise (from what I believe is the take up real drive system) but then it goes away. When I was looking to purchase I read some of the negative reviews. Everything that was negative seemed to be user error. You have to make sure that the film is properly seated under the four guide clips. If the film is chewed up you will have to baby sit the process but this is not the fault of the machine. Also, the machine can't make the move quality any better so don't expect it to look like your high def TV when you are streaming a movie. It is what it is and does a great job saving family movies and coverting them to an MP4 files. Files are easily transfered using an SD card. Functions are very intuitive and easy to use. It would be nice if they had a touch screen, but the buttons work fine.

This unit is easy to use. It's lightweight and of simple design. Loading film is simple. Run time is slow at 2 frames per second, so 34 minutes to do a 3 inch reel, but that's to be expected for any unit. Picture adjustment is easy for color and frame settings. Picture quality is 1080p but it looks slightly grainy with the sharpness setting at default for low lighted scenes. I turn it down then adjust later when post editing of the clip. The white balance setting is auto and can cause some weird color changes on certain scenes as the camera makes it's own adjustments. I wish I could just manually set it.The recorded session is saved on an SD card you plug into the unit, and converted as an mp4 file. Unfortunately you cannot set a time of file creation so that's always as January 1st. Now and then, my machine will make a loud crunching sound, then quits, but I am not sure if its the film pulling hard or the unit itself internally.I use the usb connection to import the files to my PC to then later to edit color and to add titles and such. However, for simple and quick conversions, this unit does a pretty fair job to yield a finished mp4 video file that can be played back on any mobile or PC device.I watched YOUtube videos on this Kodak unit and other brands, and this model was give the better of the reviews. All in all, this is a much better way to convert 8mm film than trying to use a cellphone or camera setup. It's also much cheaper then sending off your films, and quality, as I have read about, is much the same you would get if paid for services, and you have control of your films and video editing at your desire.