Magnasonic FS81 vs Wolverine F2DMM100 / MM100-PRO and Chinese Clones

[Peter Northwood]

Recently started looking into a way to transfer my family's old Super8 reels and have been keen on getting a Wolverine deck considering Stan's Hawkeye project, in hopes he will release a stable kit or a PCB mod to buy.

I'm from Vancouver, BC, Canada so ordering one directly from Wolverine seems to be a bit heavy on shipping and customs fees.
Looking at eBay found a decent priced source (EBIN: 333130978434), Amazon.ca has the Wolverine units over market value and then I see two models, one is a clear Chinese clone branded as Rybozen (B07VWH1G1F) and also see a Magnasonic FS81 (B083ZLP2MY). The Rybozen is spec'd to produce 1080p@30fps renders, and the Magnasonic does 1440x1080 @ 20fps , both might be using the same sensor and internal components though I am curious if this is true. Reading through the forum, noticed there is alternative firmware that changes the base Wolverine 720p model (F2DMM100) to render at higher bitrates and different resolutions, which is probably what these manufacturers are doing. Modified firmware altering how the Novatek chip captures or just renders video is fun and all however my main concern is how do these clones compare to the Wolverine models.

Does anyone have any experience with clones and how similar the internal components are?

[Stan Jelavic]

Hi Peter, not familiar with these models but looking at the specs the Rybozen unit is a hybrid between the Wolverine standard and the pro model. It takes up to 5" reels only so that is something to consider.
The Magnasonic FS81 unit is very similar to Wolverine standard model but the sw is more like the pro model with "increased resolution". Keep in mind that the optical resolution is more like 720P and they bump it up digitally.
I have several Wolverine Units here. I bought these at ebay and they are defective but I can fix them. Anyways some potential there.
The above units that you mentioned would probably work with the Hawkeye mod but sometimes the back cover can cause issues. If you get one of them then I can send you a blank Hawkeye board and you can check the fit.
Hawkeye status
The V12 boards are pretty stable with some final tweaks like the takeup tension which is a sw fix. I built a batch of 5 and could reserve one for you if interested.
The 2 exposure HDR also works but the post-process is a bit complicated.
The single exposure HDR is a work in progress. Mostly windows app work.
The capstan is still a work in progress but close to completion. The capstan does not work well in active mode i.e. clearing the film jam but works ok if you wanted to stop the scan automatically when the jam is detected. In addition a sonalert gets activated when the jam is detected.

[Peter Northwood]

Stan, thanks for the response. Just placed an order for the FS81 earlier today and if you could reserve a Hawkeye, I am thrilled to test the fit on this model and contribute to the main thread.
PM with what info you need and let's see how this goes.

[Stan Jelavic]

Will do Peter. Welcome to the Hawkeye club.

[Bernie Thompson]

Also looking at Super 8 film scanner for old my home movies. Peter - Did you get the Magnasonic FSS81 and are you happy with it?? Big price difference between FS81 it and the Wolverine MOvie Maker Pro right now.

[Richard Lussier]

Hi, I got the FS81 yesterday, scanned few films, and has the usual compression artefacts of the wolverine. I opened it up and the boards inside are similar to the wolverine. So I am going to try the Hawkeye mods very soon, and see how it work out... Really these are way cheaper, and comparable...

[Bernie Thompson]

Thanks for feedback.
I purchased the Magnasonic FS81 and being delived on Tuesday. Purchased direct as felt better warrantee and return policy if doesn't work out. Also caught FS81on sale for $249us shipped so hard to pass up.

Will update my observations once I have scanned some of my S8 reels.

[Bill Cotter]

Bernie, did you ever get the chance to compare these two units?

[Tony Bertone]

Hi,
Can someone tell me what a Hawkeye mod is?
I have the Magnasonic FS81 and would like to know if the file count can be modified or changed and also if the time or rather the date can be changed, the time stamp on the scanned video is 2017.

[Stan Jelavic]

Here is the Hawkeye info:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/vbb/f...ye-for-newbies
I don't think there is a way of changing the file info date info etc.
I would do that in the post.

[David Talbott]

Well I'm considering a Wolverine movie Pro... but I'm extremely excited about the Hawkeye mod..
Is this mod still available? Can I still get the Lens and mounts and camera? In some of the posts it looked
like they might not be available? So this might be just directed to Stan Jelavic... but always looking for a better way...

[Stan Jelavic]

Hi David, the camera and lenses and mounts are still available. I would have to check my stock to make sure I have all the parts for the board. Let me know if interested. You can message me directly.

[Richard Holloway]

Stan, I'm looking for an affordable solution to digitize about 15,000 ft 8mm-- a mixture of Regular and Standard 8. Do you have any solutions for sale? I'm sending you a msg so you can reply out of the thread, if you prefer. Thanks!

[Stan Jelavic]

I replied to your message Richard but now reading through the thread here it looks like you would want something that is more reliable and better image quality than the Wolverine or similar units. I do make the Wolverine/Reflecta custom controller (Hawkeye) mod. It works with the board type cameras from Imagingsource. The issue is that the transport is still Wolverine and it may give you problems depending on the type of film that you are using. I am also testing another Hawkeye board that works with the 8mm projectors. You replace the motor with the stepper and then the Hawkeye2 board spins the stepper one frame at a time and provides the camera trigger. I am still testing the frame rate. I think it is possible to go faster than 2FPS but that has to be verified. And also wanted to mention that after a while the system does go out of sync after a few thousand frames, but it only takes a few seconds to resync it.
Another project that I have is a fully custom machine but that is still experimental and takes quite a bit of work to put it together.

[Richard Holloway]

Hey Stan-- I saw this reply after your direct reply--

Transfer speed is my lowest priority. Faster is always nice, but some of these films have been waiting to be transferred for over 70 years-- a few more days to go through transferring isn't an issue. I just want nice quality copies of these films for my family to enjoy-- I'm not planning to go into this professionally...

I'm not sure what's causing the jams in the Kodaks-- my speculation is that maybe the Reg 8 film wasn't slit dead center on some? I have to pop open the top of the film transport when it happens-- I can only guess that it is binding up because the film is too wide. One reel slides forward fine when I do that, but binds pretty quickly when I re-close. That happened on two different Kodaks. Maybe once or twice there was a splice, but generally the film looks fine with the naked eye.

One of the Kodaks was seized up out of the box and had a delightful burning smell when powered up. Zero frames scanned on that one, so I really have only used two of the units to actually scan. One worked fairly well except on one reel that may have been slit barely off-center, but then is began to groan and scream internally and the frame advance quit. The last unit seemed fine for maybe 8 hours of use, then started slacking off on take-up. Moving the arm helped a little at first, but in the end, especially after running for a few minutes, the take-up would loose all pulling strength and the unit would dump the film into a pile if not hand-wound. That's not workable for 15,000 feet of film, and it was still inside the return period. That's three strikes in-a-row...

All I've tried is Reg 8 so far, so it has all been slit. I have film (so far) that I can track being from 1950 through 1974. About 1/3 the Reg 8 was shot in a Kodak Brownie and the other 2/3 in an unknown camera (or cameras) that my grandfather used. IDK as far as film stock though all I have seen points to some sort of Kodak film-- I assume that's about all most of these old films are, but the variety-- IDK. Should I look for indicators somewhere? Would that tell us something meaningful?

I'm open to any solution I can reasonably afford though the out-of-sync issues might be a challenge-- resetting isn't a concern so much as potentially having to re-scan over and over when it drifts. Is that something that could be reset between reels to avoid the issue? Or is this something frequent enough to be a problem on each reel, especially for a 7" reel?

Feel free to reply here or DM, as you prefer. I really appreciate your help!