KODAK REELZ 8mm & Super 8 Films Digitizer Converter with Big 5” Screen, Converts Film to Digital MP4 Files

While it may seem like there are a lot of choices when considering a device to convert old film home movies to video so you can watch them on your TV, the reality is that it all probably comes down to one company who is actually making the hardware and licensing it out under a few brand names, Wolverine being by far the most famous. There just isn’t such a huge need for a specialty product like this to have a dozen companies designing something that has such a unique application. From all appearances this seems to be made from essentially the same parts bin as the others, and because of strong association Kodak has with photography they were able to be first in line for a more modernized design than the others. It does seem to be more feature rich than any of the other lower priced ones, more on a par with the highest-end Wolverine Pro model.COMPARISONThe most obvious is, being a photography company, this machine has by far the largest viewing screen ever, and it’s not as low resolution as the others either, in fact it looks pretty good. Not that you really need it because like all of these the film passes through at an excruciatingly slow speed of about two frames per second, so what you’re seeing is a series of still images being captured one by one as the film passed through from one reel of film to the other side’s takeup reel. BUT after you’re through you don’t have to take the storage card out, you can play your movie back right there on the relatively large screen. The other really major difference for some people is that this unit can use the large seven inch reels of film, which unless your ancestors were extremely into splicing their home moves together into marathons is about the largest size reel most people will own. That can be important because all of the other lower priced models only will take a five inch reel and there has been a lot of frustration about that, sometimes they feel they were forced to spend the extra hundred bucks for the PRO model just to be able to use large reels of film. I think that’s a big plus in favor of this unit.CONTROLSThe controls of this model are more sensibly arranged and on the top of the unit, which makes for easier operation. I like that. They are real buttons that operate with a definite click so you know they are doing what you want them to. It’s a matter of preference but I think they are more logical than just one row of buttons. And there are more user controls than on the other basic unit, more like what the PRO model has.SCREENI’ve already mentioned the screen but I will repeat that I think it’s important to be able to see what’s happening, we are all used to bigger and higher resolution screens these days and the ones on most film or slide scanners are unusually nothing better than toys. Kodak has a vested interest in image quality and it shows in this unit.OPERATIONOne thing nearly every review overlooks is that the film window and image sensor are not covered in any way so they are exposed to whatever light conditions happen to be in your room. I think that’s one reason some people are not satisfied with the results, because the bright lighting in their room is throwing off the sensors. I prefer to do my film transfers in lower lighting conditions, not total darkness but just dark enough that the image sensors aren’t being fooled by bright lighting.RESULTSAfter all of the good vibes from my first impression with this unit I ended up sending it back. You see the unit keeps a record in its internal memory of how many reels of film have been passed through it. Mine reported 59 reels. I assume the first buyer used it to digitize that many reels of film then packed it up and sent it back. That wouldn’t have bothered me but apparently the tiny little sprockets that pull the film through were bent a little and that prevented them from grabbing on to each and every sprocket hole properly. When using a device like this that is very important. I’m indecisive now if I will buy another Kodak or the Pro model from the other brand. I can say that when I was able to pull a few feet of film through properly the results were very impressive, better than I expected and almost as good as the big expensive ones they use at the places that sell this service.ISSUESWhile researching this unit I found a video at the famous video tube site, no make that several videos in fact, they were from an old-timer who was trying to make a point of how much he hated this unit, apparently because they didn’t give him a free one. It got kind of old (excuse the pun) after about the third video complaining about getting a so-called defective unit. That opinion is offset by a lot of people who are very happy with this product. Now in real life I have no doubt that a high percentage of people who order one of these use it to copy their old movies, which is a one-time task, then find a reason to return it - in other words a free rental. For the record if mine had worked I would have kept it, there are plenty of friends and family I could have turn their old movies into videos.YES OR NOI’ve tried using a movie projector and pointing my phone’s camera at the screen and the results are different, in some way maybe a little better and in some ways not. There is no doubt though, that as cheap as this was to buy the image is as clear as 8mm movies are going to get (you can’t improve them, don’t buy into the hype that you need anything more than the most basic image sensor possible). Using a scanner like this you will find that the brightness across the entire screen is more even, there is less flicker and there is no hot-spot glare in the middle that all projectors are going to cause. Yes the process is slow but that’s for a reason, taking an image of each frame takes time and I have no doubt that the scanner is doing some image correction to each one of those frames. What’s really important that those fifty year and older reels of film are not getting younger, they are fading and soon will be gone forever. If preserving those memories is important to you my conclusion is that of any of the film-to-video digitizer devices this is the best bang for the buck and it’s probably the best choice for most people. Despite getting an abused one I like everything about this unit. The take-up reel strength was strong, the controls are good and the screen is excellent. It is easy to use and reasonably priced.

This machine was promising, I have a lot of 8mm and Super 8mm videos to convert to digital. It worked for 1 day. The quality of the 1 reel I was able to process was very good. Next day, I turned it on and the white light turned on but the screen did not. I waited a few hours and tried again. No luck. Cannot get the screen to turn on again. I am returning it--frustrating experience. Read the fine print Kodak does not make this item. Whoever makes it uses the name Kodak as a result of a licensing agreement. Contacted customer service email that was in the manual. No help. All they said was they received my email.

You need to carefully read the instructions to understand exactly how it works to get the best out of it. Nearly all my videos were Kodak so my expectation was high. I converted the equivalent of 45 x 50' reels without any problems. I had the occasional break at joins but was expected. I liked that you didn't need a PC to record. What I didn't like so much was it records at about 2 frames/sec so a little over 1/2 hour for a 50' reel. The other thing I didn't like was that you have to reverse the reels to rewind. Overall I was very happy with the result and can recommend the free video editor DaVinci Resolve, has a steep learning curve but very powerful, loads of YouTube help.

This is my first review ever. I have been wanting to pay it forward to all the reviewers out there that helped me in the past. Another disclaimer: although I did some research, I don't have experience with any of the other digitalizers out there. So no comparative point of view. I scanned about 70 reels with family movies taken in the 70s and 80s. Some had sound but did not find any scanner out there that can digitalize both images and sound. You would need to capture sound separately and then put them together. I'm already on this "second phase" of my digitalizing project that includes improving the images of those low- quality and damaged reels. The scanner works great with good quality reels. If you have a damaged reel, you can expect the scanner to get stuck and you have to babysit the process, otherwise, if you have good reels, the product will do its job and you can do something else while it finishes. A good feature is that it will turn off automatically so you can put a good reel and forget about it. Another is that it will ask you to check your reel if it doesn't detect an image. I will have to say here that some reels did have images I was able to improve in the second phase so don't give up, continue to scan (press the ok button in the machine) because you may be able to recover some images even if it doesn't recognize any. A nice feature if there are definitely not images in your reel because you will save some time. I learned that if the original film is good, the scanned results are great. It will work with bad film but you should babysit and adjust as needed. Plan for phase 2 to get the most out of bad film (or film with sound). They could have done better for the rewind process. I'm sure there are technical reasons for how the rewind process is put in place, but you will feel there are one-two extra steps and it could perhaps rewind faster. You can get a memory card large enough for your project. I used everything, even when it got stuck or when the images were not great. But you can also delete files from the machine itself if the first scan was not what you wanted. You can adjust color, saturation and brightness and scan again. I found this useful several times when the original was not great and if your memory card is limited, then you can also save space. So in all, I can recommend this product if you have a number of 8mm reels in fairly good condition and you wish to have your family home videos digitally preserved. I was very pleased with the quality of the digital version. It takes time (and perhaps more than necessary when rewinding!), but like most good things, it is worth it. I hope this helps you.