MWA Albrecht GmbH was originally formed in 1926 as a manufacturer of Radio components.
Following the Second World War the company was reformed and embarked on the manufacturing of audio equipment specifically intended for the film industry.
The year 1947 saw the first Audio magnetic tape recorders and players being developed.
In the early 1970s the first modern type electronic synchronisable Mag recorder/player (sound follower) the MB41 was introduced revolutionizing sound for film and broadcast.
1980 saw the launch of the MB51 multiformat Mag machine/sound follower is, followed shortly by the PB51 multi format high speed studio film projector.
The MB51 rapidly earned a reputation as the best machine of its’ type worldwide and sold almost 2500 units making the name MWA Albrecht GmbH truly world famous in the professional Audio and Film fields.
MWA went on to further this reputation by introducing the only modern Laser Optical Sound Recorder the LLK in 1995. This machine differs greatly from the only other older style system currently still in use, in as much as the sound is recorded on the negative film using a green NeHe laser beam which results in unparalleled accuracy and performance statistics.
Over the 55 years of its’ existence the name MWA Albrecht GmbH became synonymous with the highest engineering quality, and technical innovation; a tradition that continues today following the takeover of the company at the end of 2002, and subsequent renaming as MWA Nova GmbH.
2004 saw the first MWA Nova film scanning product launched in the form of the flashscan8 scanner for 8mm, super8mm, and 9.5mm which has to date not only revolutionized the world of small gauge film scanning, and became a standard worldwide. The Flashscan8 sold in excess of 200 units as of March 2010.

In 2005 we applied the same scanning and synchronization principles learnt in the development of Flashscan8 to the existing transport of the MB51 sound follower thereby creating the flashtransfer standard definition real-time film scanner for 16 and 35mm film which due to its low price and high specification including all sound formats has been widely accepted in the archive world.
The Flashscan and Flashtransfer product lines were instrumental in raising our profile within the archiving community worldwide and further focusing our R&D investments towards specialist Archive solutions for image and sound.
2006 saw the developments of special replay heads for the MB51 to cope with the ever increasing problem of Vinegar Syndrome.
Following the introduction of the RoHs manufacturing standard in 2006 we also undertook a complete redesign of the LLK Laser Optical Sound Camera in 2007, as even now in 2011 many international territories continue to prefer Celluloid to Digital.
From 2008 to 2009 our efforts were focused on the development of the next generation small gauge film scanner – The flashscanHD. Launched in 2009 at the IBC this system was the first to incorporate “automatic colour correction & laser splice and picture steadiness correction”. (As of January 2011 we have sold 37 units).
On the basis of the development of the laser splice and picture steadiness correction MWA has developed a patented feature for the replay of shrunken celluloid and magnetic audio material – “The Laser shrinkage detector” or LSD. By scanning shrunken material with a laser we can analyse its shrinkage, where perforations are missing etc and playback previously unplayable material at the right speed, and importantly at the correct length allowing synchronization of image and audio – This feature is available on both our scanners and sound followers!
In 2009 we were approached by the Library of Congress who, familiar with our high standard of design and engineering, awarded us a tender to develop a real-time high performance lower-priced film scanner as a tool for the mass digitization of 16mm and 35mm material where no budget was available for a photochemical transfer/restoration – This has gone on to become the flashtransfer Vario which was officially launched at the IBC in 2010.
MWA Nova currently offers more specialist solutions for the actual physical transfer and replay of celluloid and magnetic film for archival purposes than any other single manufacturer.
We currently have 25 employees 8 of whom are involved full time in R&D. We also run a traditional engineering shop further augmented by two high end modern CNC milling systems allowing us undertake a high level of manufacturing, and all assembly “in house”. These factors allow us our overall engineering flexibility, and forward thinking approach to the challenges of legacy film and audio material.

MWA Nova also exclusively distributes a number of Film, Video, and Audio post production tools and systems from well-known and respected manufacturers.