Wolverine MM Pro workflow newbie help please

[Frits Poulsen]

Ok, I get that Marco, so exactly what have you done (step by step) to make it run smoothly at the right speed?

[Marco De Vitis]

Well, my 30 fps --> 16 fps conversion is actually part of the post-processing chain I set up using avisynth, which is probably not the fastest route I would suggest to simply change the frame rate. Even setting up avisynth (http://avisynth.nl/) is not trivial IMHO, but if you really want to try then the command to be used in a script for changing frame rate is:

FFVideoSource(<file_path>, colorspace="YV12").assumefps(16)

Then I actually do not attempt any "smoothing", I just play the converted movie at 16 fps (which is the right speed for my "normal 8" reels).

I'd rather recommend you first try with some free video editing app, e.g. the free version of DaVinci Resolve, see tutorials like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec6Atos418w

[Frits Poulsen]

Thx again Marco. You're right - avisynth does not look easy to work with for a videoediting newbee. DaVinci certainly looks more intuitive and easy.
Just one question: Is there a reason for that the Wolverine now creates a 30 fps MP4 file, instead of 20 fps earlyer? Does that give a better result after converting back to 16 fps, to get the right motion speed?

[Marco De Vitis]

There is absolutely no difference, the MP4 contains the same number of frames, same quality, same images, they are only played back at different speeds by default, and if you play them both at 16 fps you will see no difference.

I don't know why Wolverine creates MP4 with those fps settings, must be a limitation of the encoder which is used. And anyway my unit which generates 30fps movies is a clone of an OLD Wolverine, base model (not the Pro). I think more recent units have different settings.

[Frits Poulsen]

So except for the bigger reel size, there does not seem to be any advantages buying the Wolverine over the Reflecta. Resolution is the same, but the price, at least from DK, seems to be about 200$ higher for the Wolverine (and difficult to get inside EU to avoid extra VAT and taxes)

[Marco De Vitis]

I think the Wolverine Pro, the one which supports bigger reels, if you are referring to that one, might have some small improvements in the output quality. But I'll leave that to be confirmed by the experts here.

I had the same issue anyway: I also live in the EU (Italy), and buying a Wolverine from here is very expensive because it is only sold in the US. That's why I ended up buying a no-brand clone from digitnow.us, it was shipped from inside the EU. But hope you don't need to return it because it can be difficult (strange website, I suppose operated from China).

[Stan Jelavic]

The pro unit is 1080P vs 720P of the regular model. But this is a gimmick since there is no change in the optics, just a firmware change. So the only big difference is the support for larger reels. Also wanted to add that it has 4 pulleys in the takeup which could possibly have better jitter performance.

[Frits Poulsen]

Oh boy, can see the clone scanner on digitnow.us for just 270$ - that's very tempting, even if shipping cost is quite high. But how can you know, it's shipped from within the EU, if it's originally coming from China? Did you really not pay any extra taxes? And you are satisfied with the quality?

[Marco De Vitis]

Strange, my clone of the regular model generates files with 1440 x 1080 resolution anyway. I rather seem to recall reading somewhere that something in the image was only slightly better, maybe the compression, or maybe colors, can't recall now.

[Stan Jelavic]

If you have a clone then it is quite possible Marco. They just put different FW into it. If there are enhancements then it would be FW. I have both units and do not see any difference in the optics. Do not recall of anyone making a comparison.

[Marco De Vitis]

Oh boy, can see the clone scanner on digitnow.us for just 270$ - that's very tempting, even if shipping cost is quite high. But how can you know, it's shipped from within the EU, if it's originally coming from China? Did you really not pay any extra taxes? And you are satisfied with the quality?

Well, that's a strange story .
I wrote to them before purchasing, and they confirmed they could ship from EU. And shipping to Italy is free! I now see that you have high shipping costs to Denmark instead, ouch. So maybe you can ask them just to be sure.
Anyway, I ordered on their website and expected a long delivery, instead I received it in a couple of days, and it was delivered by Amazon! Very strange. So no, I did not have to pay any extras.

The last question is more complex... In the end yes, overall I'm satisfied. With the help of this forum I have eventually found a postprocessing chain and settings to work around Wolverine issues: jitter stabilization, fps change, aspect ratio correction, color correction, blur+resharpen to iron out some digital artifacts. In this way I'd say I can achieve results comparable to what I was getting from local shops, which charged 1 euro or more per minute and provided results which were not perfect anyway, sometimes definitely worse. At least I have more control now on the process, I can capture the whole frame area, I can be sure that I'm not skipping any film sections, etc.
I know that there are professionals around who could provide better results, but it would cost too much for what it's worth in my case: it also depends on how important are the movies you need to convert.

BUT... I had my fair share of issues with this unit, which you can read about in the Hawkeye thread.
First of all, I think I received a second hand unit. The box was perfect, but some details in the plastic of the unit make me think it was already used and maybe returned.
Then, soon after I started using it, I encountered film transport issues. On some reels the film would hang very often, and when this happens, even for a fraction of a second, it's a disaster because then the film movement goes out of sync with respect to the frame capture in the camera, and what you get in the end is an mp4 file ready for your recycle bin, after 1-2 hours of conversion.
I started an email exchange with the seller. I've read in this forum and elsewhere that many Wolverine users are having film transport issues of different kinds, but given that I had just purchased it I wanted to try getting their support before doing anything else. After some initial standard questions and suggestions, they offered to take it back; they initially told me to return it through Amazon, but Amazon of course replied that they could not take it back because it was not sold by them. So the seller abandoned the offer of a return, and offered instead a partial refund. And they sent me the refund even before I could even make up my mind about the decision to accept or not!

So, once I had no more options, I opened up the unit to find the issue. And actually after opening it and doing some tests, for unkown reasons the amount of transport issues was greatly reduced. So now I'm always using it "naked" (without the back cover and without the front bezel), and it works fine apart from an oscillating jitter - for which I still have to find the cause but which I mostly fix in post-processing - and apart from some yet occasional transport issues, but my old reels anyway are not perfect, there are old joints, etc.

In the end, it was a long process and required some effort, but I'm satisfied by the results and I got them cheap because I was partially refunded.

[Marco De Vitis]

If you have a clone then it is quite possible Marco. They just put different FW into it. If there are enhancements then it would be FW. I have both units and do not see any difference in the optics. Do not recall of anyone making a comparison.

Here is one of the comparisons I saw in the past:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBsbUR4OQ4

In the video sample at the end it seems the Pro version has less "yellowish" tint in the result.

[Stan Jelavic]

Cool. Thanks Marco. On my monitor I do not see much difference. The digital artifacts are about the same. As I said they just resize the video digitally in FW and possibly adjust the the colors.