8mm & Super 8 Film to Digital Converter, Film Scanner Digitizer with 2.4" Screen, Convert 3” 5” 7” 9” Reels into 1080P Digital MP4 Files,Sharing & Saving on 32GB SD Card

The media could not be loaded. 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 ProcessingOnce 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!

Addendun to initial review:The film advance claw frequently fails to engage in the sprocket holes causing the frames to be repeated and off center.It is impossible to process a short film because it happens every 10 to 15 frames. The resulting output is unuseable.All the specified threading instructions have been carefully followed.This problem makes the movie degitizer completely unuseable.Now I just have to figure out how to return the scanner without a lot of time, trouble, cost and pain in the ar**.Now comes the stinger!!!So I returned the product as per the Amazon instructions and eventually got back the product cost, however as I live in New Zealand the return shipping cost is significant, over US$ 70. Amazon refuse to credit me the return freight cost and only offer a Promo Voucher credit on my account. As it happens, that's illigal in New Zealand. If the product fails to perform to the advertised specifications the return cost must be refunded in full, not bt way of a voucher for another purchase.No amount of discussion with Amazon customer service after escalating through four levels ofsupervisors (from Philippines call center to US) resolved this issue. I'm stiol waiting to get my return shipping expenses back.How does one take legal action against Amazon without it costing an arm and a leg??Help!!

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. LolBUT 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 routeDO 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!