Magnasonic Super 8/8mm Film Scanner, Converts Film into Digital Video, Vibrant 2.3" Screen, Digitize and View 3", 5" and 7" Super 8/8mm Movie Reels (FS81)

I had a few false starts. The Scanner was not to blame. First, I had a faulty SD card adapter and after that the SD card itself was bad. But after working through these problems, the scanner was great. I digitized 23 3" rolls of film (all Super 8) without any problems whatsoever. It was fairly easy to thread but a few times I missed the clips that the film must go under when loading, but this was my fault. A small LED light above the loading area would be nice, but I just kept a small flashlight at hand. I didn't expect perfection for the price, but I was very well satisfied.The results were better than I had expected. Some of these movies were over 50 years old. The digitized videos weren't speed matched perfectly but this didn't hurt the viewability. A few had a little jumpiness which I could have probably adjusted out, but I didn't feel that it was worth the effort. It really wasn't that bad.I showed the resulting videos to the whole family on Christmas Eve. Everybody was thrilled. Even the grand kids who now have faces to reference when I mention their great-grandparents.A rewind motor that would eliminate the need to flip the reels from one side to the other would be helpful, but would probably increase the price too much.All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase.

This machine has worked wonderfully! I was kind of skeptic ordering this, but I wanted to make digital files of my late grandfathers 8mm film reels. The first reel didn't go so well, but it was spliced in several places. The last 25 + reels, the machine worked amazingly! It's crazy that it takes about 30 minutes to scan film and then the files are like 3-4 minutes long. Camera's back then didn't have sound either, but they are so fun to watch. Our family memories are now preserved. The machine is very user friendly and easy to operate.

Needed to archive a few dozen 8MM and Super 8 films for a relative. Although I have no experience with film media I have done a bit of editing for family films from the Camcorder era onward. To capture all that material via a service provider would have cost a fortune. Enter the Magnasonic. This little devise which is no bigger than a toaster and I caught a sale on Amazon at $249. (Funny how if you leave things in your shopping list long enough they sometimes magicaly go on sale)This is my 2nd unit. The first was returned as it did not like Super8 film AT ALL! I retuned it quickely and Amazon issued a refund and replacement. The 2nd unit has performed nearly flawlessly. Of course what matters most is the quality of the output and I have to say it is better than I expected. It all depends on the source material. Badly degraded or over/under exposed film will look just as bad when scanned. But film in good condition will give some suprisingly good results.I was able to scan 3 inch up to 7 inch reels with usually no problem. However, you cannot set and forget it. If there are obstructions on the film such as bad spliciing, old glue or burn marks it will stop the unit dead in it's tracks and you have you stop the process. Then you have to move the film a few frames to get past it. You can start/stop in the middle of the scan process but that will create seperate output files. Fortunately I only had this happen a couple of times. And it does take awhile. A 3 inch film scan is about 1/2 hour but the 7 inch took about 4.You will definitely need video editing software. The unit only outputs at 20FPS but 8MM is recorded at 16FPS and Super8 at 18FPS. If you simply run the output on a computer media player it will be speeded up like the old Keystone Cops. (Anyone younger than 65 will likely have to look up that reference) So you will need to slow it down. (80% works for 8MM and 90% for Super 8)A couple of minor items. The take up reel tends to wobble and scrap the unit body. The sound is annoying but in the case of scanning a 7 inch reel it caused the take up reel to stop and the output reel started spooling out film all over. LIke i said, you need to keep an I eye on it. Also, found it's easier to load the film if the machine is completely off. It seems the reels move more freely as you load it.My final take it that it is worth the buy. If you exercise a little care you should get good results. Since this is my only need for this devise, I will probabaly Ebay this badboy once I am done.