1. The operating instructions are inadequate. Requires trial and error operations.2. Machine frequently jambs while processing 35mm slides that are in excellent condition.3. Quality is very poor. After processing about two dozen slides the color of the slides broke down and every slide had a overriding red colorl[...]

[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]

This is an amendment to the last review. As it turns the problem with my scanner was actually in my operating system. I had to finally clean out my pc and reinstall windows xp because of other problems. Before I had only tried reinstalling the scanner software and photoshop to no effect. Now the scanner works like new and I'm back in business. I can only guess as to what might cause problems, using the machine constantly without breaks between batches, accidentally scanning beyond the capacity of the hard drive, dust build up inside? I would be gentle with the software. It is not bullet proof. I now restart the scanner and software between batches. This needs to be done if for example you tell it to scan 23 slides. The prescanning features are rudimentary and pretty much a waste of time. I make adjustments later in photoshop. Scans at 3600dpi, 16 bit duplicate the colors well but you end up with huge files. Jpegs at 1800dpi show a bluish cast and are underexposed. It takes 3.8 minutes per scan at 3600dpi, 16bit with only ICE turned on.

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

After using the machine extensively, I became quite happy with it until it failed to function properly, half images, frames with colored streaks, skipped frames. The software compared favorably to silverfast (the high end after market software) for high resolution scans. The feeder never really jammed, loaded 50 in the morning and another 50 before going to bed. The ICE featured worked and I could not detect any degradation of the image at high magnification. I got 2,500 nice 80mb scans from the unit. The question is did I just get a bad machine? The only other batch scanner is the Nikon product which has reputation for jamming. How much is your time worth?

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By Steve from Bozeman, Montana on 7/13/2007

The unit is sturdy and reliable. The ICE dust removing software is incredible! I wish it had better auto color and brightness correction software.
It is slow but that hardly matters since you can load 100 slides and walk away. Well sort of walk away. Depending on the condition of the slide frames it does jam occasionally. The one big improvement I would like to see is to have the carrosell sit flat and work more like a traditional carosell. Then it probably would jam much less.
We use it to batch scan customers' family slides in order to put them on DVDs. Being able to scan 100 slides while my employee does other things is invaluable -- even if they do have to attend to a jam or 2 every so often.
Finally the images are good but not excellent. I would like to see a bit more sharpness/contrast and more saturated color. But so far, no customer complaints.
In summery, this scanner is great to do large numbers of slides for undemanding applications where cost controll (automation) is important.
I would buy it again for this application. We have done several thousand slides with it with no mechanical problems. It works.

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By Steve from Toronto, Canada on 5/24/2007

May 24, 2007After a month's neophyte learning curve and evaluation I can finally say that all things considered I am very happy with my German Braun MultiMag Slidescan 4000 that I purchased [...] in April 2007. Downside: The manual is very poor for a neophyte - Example: 24bit colour depth is indicated as a drop-down choice but no where in the manual does it say one has to choose 8bit to get 24bit colour depth (8bits for each Primary Colour - RGB - Red, Green, Blue 3x8=24); ICE/ROC/GEM and Digital Noise are not what the ads claim. ICE and GEM would unpredictably remove the wrong things, fuzzing the quality, and ROC would often result in weird colours. I ultimately decided to keep them turned off, except for when really needed; I could never get the Round 100 slide tray (Mfr 160649) to function properly, it repeatedly jumped up and down in the machine and slides would jam and basically scared me that damage might result; Scanning times for 720 DPI to 3600 DPI are at least 3 1/2 times longer than scans for 72 DPI to 600 DPI; The very few times a slide jammed using the included 50 slide tray, the transport arm continued trying to 'transport' the slide instead of stopping, contrary to what I'd been told, so I have to be in the room with the machine while it scans to turn the machine off if a slide jams; There is no scanner-stop button, one has to turn the machine off in the event of a jam, and then wait thru the re-start-up time again.Upside: The Braun 50-slide tray that comes with the machine, Mfr # 150589, SKU # IMTBT502, works perfectly for slides up to 2mm thick; Out of several thousand slides scanned so far I have had only 4 jams, and those I suspect were my fault; The machine seems to me to be very well engineered and solidly built, I am confident at this time it will continue to function well for a very long time; My target is Slides-to-DVD, and I found that 600 DPI at 43 seconds scan-per-slide without ICE, GEM, ROC, nor Digital Noise Reduction, the perfect setting for almost all of my needs, and still, it is good to know I can scan up to 3600 DPI and use those other tools also if I ever need to; There are probably trillions and trillions of 35mm slides people want scanned on to DVD. Because of this Braun Scanner I can now scan as many slides as I care to cope with.My very first customer has 12,000 slides for me to scan, and, I expect to soon need to purchase more Braun MultiMag 4000 SlideScanners to keep up with the jobs.

I am a novice when it comes to digital photography. But I do have 30,000 slides, 25% of which I would like to scan and have instantly available on the computer. The second reason is to archive the photos to hedge against the fading of the slides. For that many slides I obviously needed a bulk scanner. I waited for a year and couldn't find any decent reviews on this machine so decided to take the risk and buy it.
My initial impressions are it takes longer than you think loading the slides, dusting etc. A scan at 3600dpi takes a hair over 3 minutes each. The machine vibrates and make a groaning sound which makes me wonder whats going on inside(does this affect the scan?). Slide jamming hasn't been a problem even with warped cardboard mounts. It is better to scan to files than to the editor photoshop elements3. In case of crashes then you will have the saved scans. The one problem I am encountering is the unstable software. Sometimes the scanner will freeze up, most often the counter isn't accurate and scans fewer slides. To guarantee a good series of scans you must restart the unit and occasionally reboot the computer. In the owners manual there is no telephone or address for tech support - "Contact your dealer". I might post another review in a few months when I get some extensive use out of it.