Wolverine-Hawkeye Telecine

[Marco De Vitis]

Hello,
I recently bought a Wolverine clone, a no-brand Movie Digitizer / MovieMaker "M127".
I'm having some issues with it, and by searching the web I stumbled upon the thread by Robert Hudson in the old forum, of which this one is a followup.
So I thought I could ask about it here, I hope this is the right place .

My issue can be seen here: http://mdv.eu/temp/MovieMaker_Problem_Short.mp4
It seems similar to what Mr. Hudson experienced when the belt of his Wolverine was melting. But my device is new! And it actually does not do it with ALL my 8mm movies... with some of them it goes mostly smooth, while with others the issue happens continuously, even getting to a complete halt of the conversion process (blue error screen on the converter).
It does not seem to be related to film conditions or joints, because e.g. the film in the demo video above seems in very good conditions to me.
Curiously it has a specific periodicity, at least in most cases: it glitches every 4 frame advances.

I'm asking the seller for a replacement, but they are offering a partial refund instead. Which would be fine to me, IF I can fix the issue somehow myself.

Do you have any clues? Do you think a fix is possible? I like the image quality after all, if I can make it work.

This thread and the old one are so long that I hope I'm not asking something which has already been said a million times...
And by the way: I'm interested in what has become the main topic of the thread, it's still not clear to me; is it a DIY Wolverine-like project? Where can I find full info and status about it?

Thanks for any info!

[Stan Jelavic]

Hi Marco. I have not seen issue like yours before. A closer examination of you video indicates that this in not the takeup reel issue but possibly issue with the transport mechanism. The stepper motor drives a gear which drives the claw gear and the ratio is 1:4 i.e. the main gear one turn results in claw gear 4 turns. By the sound of it there may be a problem with the main gear at one spot, something like worn teeth resulting in slippage. That is why it repeats every 4 frames roughly. It is not that hard to disassemble the transport mechanism but does require some patience. Let me know if you want to do that and I can put together a short guide for you.
The purpose of these pages is to discuss the Wolverine improvements. Together with the help from the team here I designed a replacement controller for the Wolverine with the new camera and lens. The camera connects to a PC where it store the frame-by-frame images which then can be used to create a video.
The name of the kit is Hawkeye and I sell it for $100 US. The kit provides better image quality than stock Wolverine and since it gives you individual frames it is much more suitable for post-processing than the stock Wolverine MP4 file.
Hope this helps.

[Marco De Vitis]

Hi Stan, thank you very much for the info.
Great job, Hawkeye is really interesting, is there a dedicated page anywhere for more details?
For example how does it "integrate" with the Wolverine? Do I need working Wolverine mechanics? Will my clone be ok? How does it connect to the PC and Mac if possible, etc... Otherwise I'll ask you directly here or privately.
This is something I was thinking about since I started looking at the Wolverine; why not keep all scanned frames instead of spoiling it all with a cheap compression... and why not use a better camera. It seemed a good opportunity, partially wasted.

The chinese seller in the meantime just sent a partial refund, without waiting for my confirmation 🙄.
So I suppose I'm the final owner of the machine, and I can open it and try a fix. Maybe I can have a look in the weekend. Any useful info is welcome!
Thank you again.

[David Brown]

Hello Marco.

Your Wolverine looks like, and sounds like, the one Robert Hudson (Forum founder) had. The take up reel is belt driven from small gears off the main gear. There is room inside to replace it with a separate take up motor, which is what Wolverine did in later models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Y7cYXvHMg

I have upgraded my Wolverine with Stan's Hawkeye kit, and it works great. The image on the small Wolverine screen might look good, but it will not look good larger on a television or computer.

Good luck. I have seen many complaints about the belt drive, never seen any about the 'slipping gears" or whatever is making that sound!

Hello Stan, hope things are going well with your projects.

[Marco De Vitis]

Hi David,
thanks, yes Bob's video is one of the first I found when researching about the issue, and which eventually brought me here .

I know the quality of my Wolverine clone and I think it's not bad after all, at least for my 8mm movies. I tested 4 conversion shops near where I live, before getting the device, and I must say that some were even worse. I already copied and examined on my computer all movies I converted; with respect to the results from the shops, I would say Wolverine has slightly less image definition (barely noticeable) and a tendency to yellow tint, but overall I like it, most of all because I can go over the same movie again and again with e.g. different exposure levels or different framing settings, to my liking.

But the erratic movement is a nightmare: if one frame is slightly delayed by the transport issue, all following frames will be out of sync.
There are movies where the issue never occurs, but anyway it seems to me that the framing has some jitter, not all frames are equal, and this is visible in the converted video and can be hard to fix afterwards.

I'm really interested in the Hawkeye kit but I would like to know more. Are there conversion samples around, with comparison to plain Wolverine results? And photos of the kit in use?

Thanks!

[Stan Jelavic]

Hi Marco and David,
Can you open up the back cover of the unit when you get the chance and try to isolate where the noise is coming from. While at it if you could take a hi rez picture of the unit inside so that we can figure out if the Hawkeye kit fits in if you decide to go that way.. When you open up the back cover be careful because the unit can easily tip over.

Here is the picture of the Wolverine with the Hawleye kit installed.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q4u1x4yV8pQcxdCF7

Here is the unit test video:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Maq9jgY8FgUpy7tj7


Here is the user manual. Will give you the idea on the steps involved in installing of the kit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qe...ew?usp=sharing


Here is Mike's Wolverine-Hawkeye comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRogD_oErR4&t=94s

Mike did not do much Hawkeye postprocessing and that is why the color is off. The Hawkeye BUC02 camera tends to have a blue tinge. The UX226 and UX178 do not. But you can see in the comparison the difference in compression and resolution in some scenes.
I will try to put together comparison with the post done.

The kit also reduces the frame to frame jitter by pulsing the takeup reel instead of having it on continuously.

Hi David, I just finished the HDR work with the UX178 camera. Put one of the V13 USB3 components together but the test failed. Looks like it is teh routing of the traces and high speed. Will have to rethink this one.

[Stan Jelavic]

Did some more testing of the V13 USB3 connection. Looks like it would be lots of work to get it going this way. An alternative is to use a good quality USB3 cable through the back housing (open up the SD card slot) and directly into the camera.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CZBGFM8/
With that the V13 board is not really required if the V12 can be made to work with the camera adapter board (possible trace shorts). Will look into this more.
Will also try a pair of shorter usb cables:
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...dp/B00YEDSD6C/

[Stan Jelavic]

Tested the camera adapter boards with the UX226 and UX178. Two versions, V1 for S8, and V2 for R8. It all works pretty good. Could not test the BUC02 because I do not have one. Possibly will get it for any future testing.
Here is an eyechart of how the adapter boards get installed.


Here are the test images.

[Kamel Ikhlef]

Hello Stan,
If you give me the exact measurements of the additional cards,
I can design a custom 3D support. It will be easier for those who can print.
maybe even remove the spacers. Thinking.

Thanks again for all your hard work in improving our telecine system.

[Stan Jelavic]

Thanks Kamel,
Here are camera adapter Eagle files.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...V1?usp=sharing
Let me know if you need anything else. Ah yes the spacers:
- V12 board to adapter board 8mm spacers
- Adapter board to camera 5mm spacers
- Adapter board thickness 1.6 mm

This is for the UX226 and UX178 cameras with 16mm lens.
Have not tested the BUC camera with the adapter board.

[Marco De Vitis]

Hi Stan,
thank you for all the info.

I see that the images in the Hawkeye manual refer to a Wolverine Pro, can it fit also in the base version? My clone is like the base one.
I've uploaded something here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/XCvRQ8N8XxjL23MJ9

• front and back of the unit
• two images of the inside
• a short video of the unit while working

Guess what? When using the unit while open I could not reproduce the issue! Not even with films which previously had continuous glitches.
I only got a few single "clack"s, but they were not enough to capture what was happening. One is in the video I uploaded, at 00:21. There is a video frame where you can see the gears standing still. And it was enough to make the rest of the conversion out of sync.

Let me know if you think the kit would fit and if you have any ideas about my issue, thanks.

Anyway, ouch, I did not know that the camera had to be bought separately and it is a bit expensive :-/.
The difference in Mike's sample is clear but not astonishing. It surely has more natural colors, even though darker by default they can surely be tuned afterwards; I hoped for a better result directly from the conversion, but I guess this is not possible. And also regarding the resolution, it is confirmed that the Wolverine already gets near to the maximum achievable from those films, there is not much to improve.
The sure advantages are the possibility to process uncompressed individual frames and consequently use a better compression for the movie, the Wolverine compression is visible in high contrast areas.
And for me, of course, the biggest annoyance is the issue with film transport.
Isn't it possible to use the Hawkeye with the default Wolverine camera?

For a better comparison anyway I wuold suggest avoiding a half A + half B video like Mike's, and show instead the same image portion in both halves. Otherwise it's hard to really see the differences.

Thanks for all your work!

[Stan Jelavic]

Hi Marco. Will respond to your email in more detail tomorrow. This definitely looks like some problem with the gears. Since your unit is a belt drive driven by the claw gear maybe the takeup is jamming somehow. Try running without the belt.
You may need to disassemble the transport and check the gears. I will send you instructions tomorrow.
I am working on a nice Wolverine-Hawkeye comparison. It will take a few days to complete.
Unfortunately the Wolverine camera is integrated on the board (sensor soldered to the board) so there is no way of reusing it with the Hawkeye.
Regarding the resolution. Hawkeye is better but you need a large monitor to see the difference. If you watch your videos on a laptop then, yes, it is true that you will not see any significant difference.
But quite frankly for me the biggest issue with Wolverine is compression. I can recognize right away that a video is done on a Wolverine. The features in some scenes look rough with pronounced sharp edges. The jpeg tiling is also very noticeable like grass or waves with missing detail.

[David Brown]

Marco

Here is what I did to maximize the image quality from the wolverine. Zoom all the way out to to see beyond the frame lines. This keeps the relative size of compression artifacts to faces small. Always set sharpness to LOW, again sharper images get more compression. Don't use the take up reel.
Your machine uses a belt drive. That should be better synced to the claw than the independent drive motor I have. If geared too high, it could still be pulling too hard at the gate. That's not going to fix your grinding gears or whatever that is doing to the claw's motor.

I had intended to place a colorized gel over the light source to reduce the excess blue light. That is causing the yellow cast. I never got that far. I started to look for a longer lens to replace the stock wolverine lens to avoid zooming. That's how I found this forum!

Most of these suggestions will mean using some post production to crop and sharpen. Artifacts still get sharpened in post, and there is not much headroom for changing white balance and exposure. These are motion jpegs and have already discarded information. It can help, and maybe you are already doing these things if your videos look ok?

I do have some films saved from the wolverine captures. I can only compare those to my current equipment. I'm using a 16mm lens and the UX226. That is the most expensive camera lens combination. Though I still have the 12mm / BUC02 camera, I won't be reassembling that for a comparison!!!

Some say the 1080p (1440X1080) is overkill for 8mm films. The wolverine's camera has good resolution(2304X1536), if only they used all of it! A tiny percentage of the camera is used and even less when the digital zoom is used. Then it's all upscaled to 1440x1080.

I recently decided on my post production workflow and this is the first reel I processed, and delivered to a friend.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bta...ew?usp=sharing

[Stan Jelavic]

Nice video David.
Here is a picture outlining on how to pull the stepper assembly out.


After the stepper 3 screws are removed the assembly will become loose. Try pulling it out slowly giving some slack to the two cables routed through the front panel. You may be able to pull it out sufficiently to be able to work on it. If not you may need to remove the front bezel by removing the small screws from the back.



Once the stepper assembly is out remove the 4 cover screws and open the cover plate. You will see two gears.


Using the gloves try turning the large gear. Make sure that it is not turned in the wrong direction by checking the claw movement. The claw should be moving in the film advance direction.
Visually inspect the gears and check for anything binding.
It is also possible to remove the gears but I would leave that for later because it is a bit tricky.

[Stan Jelavic]

Here is the Hawkeye-Wolverine side-by-side comparison. Hawkeye video has no sharpening at all because this is the raw footage. Video Fred does some sharpening and after that the Hawkeye video is sharper that the one from Wolverine. The problem is that it is hard to sync the two videos after postprocessing so that is why I decided to stay with the raw videos.
Notice the color difference and compression (trees at 00:48) also the clock at the end, yellow tinge at the beginning and some other scenes. Artifacts in the clouds at 00:25.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XFl...ew?usp=sharing