Have you EVER wanted to scan that old book?

[Greg Anos]

For straight scanning/OCR'ing. You don't need the full package. The Express version works just fine and cost only $60 US, vs. $400 US for the full package. When I got my 3600, years ago, it came with Sprint 5.0. I bought 9.0 express as a separate package. For most books 9.0 is superior. However, every once and a while, I find books that give 9.0 fits, work better under 5.0. Go figure, so I keep them both....

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by HorridRedDog

I have had 2 flat bed scanners over the years. I never used them much after I accomplished the initial objectives.

One of the problems I found in scanning pages from books was bleed through from the other side.

I don't remember how many scanners I've had. The first I bought while in college with money from a summer job-- cost $400, had an optical resolution of 300 DPI, needed a SCSI card, and took 3 passes (R, G, and B) to make a scan! A couple of scanners later, I had one with 1600dpi optical that I scratched all to hell scanning fossils and meteorites on it and it eventually died anyway. I destroyed the scanner that replaced that (one of those 30 buck printer/copier/scanner combo pieces of crap) by attempting to cut off the front bezel of the case to make it into an edge scanner...

As for the bleed through, the scanner I mentioned has a black top plate which helps minimize bleed through-- but years back I would use a sheet of black construction paper. Still doesn't fix everything with thin/low quality paper, but it helps.+

Edited to add: I had one "scanner" before the one I mentioned-- on my Commodore Amiga, I had this monster kludge (that was a commercial product, not something I threw together) that consisted of a b/w security camera (tube based, not CCD) mounted a foot or two over a platform with circular florescent lights mounted to arms on both sides of the platform. The camera had a wheel with red, green, blue, and clear color filters mounted below it. You would put whatever under the camera to "scan", then scanned 3 times, turning the color wheel each time. All for a 320x240 image-- which could be printed up with my color 9-pin dot-matrix printer!

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

It's not in the DPI, it's in the function, it's in what this device might enable, it's in what comes next, Harry. And what comes next is both exciting and terrifying for a great many people.

The good stuff is already out there-- just not at prices mere mortals can afford. This one is my favorite (and yes, I DO welcome our new book scanning robot overlords)
:

These are less cool, but serviceable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNlp_tN1kaQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cyiejjy16w:

[vivaldirules]

You might want to read the reviews of the Opticbook 3600 before buying one. I was ready to buy one two years ago and then read the many sad reviews at Amazon. And from the more recent reviews, I see no evidence that things have improved with it any.

[Conor]

Originally Posted by HorridRedDog

A "camera" poised above the page could be a solution, but the rigs you can buy are too expensive. The homebuilt ones I've seen on the net would take far more time than I would like to spend. After all, I only have a few books to scan.

This one consists solely of a camera, tripod, desk lamp, and cardboard box. Zero cost if you have the first three, and building and setting it up should only take a few minutes.
http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/....php?f=1&t=239

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

You might want to read the reviews of the Opticbook 3600 before buying one. I was ready to buy one two years ago and then read the many sad reviews at Amazon. And from the more recent reviews, I see no evidence that things have improved with it any.

As I have reported previously in the major thread in this forum concerning book scanning (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=scanning), I have been very satisfied with my Opticbook 3600, using it with various versions of FineReader.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

You might want to read the reviews of the Opticbook 3600 before buying one. I was ready to buy one two years ago and then read the many sad reviews at Amazon. And from the more recent reviews, I see no evidence that things have improved with it any.

I tend to take "customer reviews" with a big shakerful of salt-- people who have problems with a product are much more likely to rant than people with success are to praise. So it can be that almost everyone likes their product-- and says nothing, while a handful that got a defective unit rant about it.

[HorridRedDog]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

For straight scanning/OCR'ing. You don't need the full package. The Express version works just fine and cost only $60 US, vs. $400 US for the full package.

I can't find the "Express" version at all, nor even a used OpticBook at that price.

Originally Posted by gr8npwrfl

You would be better off with a high definition still camera on a stand.

Lets say that I go that way, I have access to an 8 megapixel Nikon camera.

What are the recomendations on OCR software? I'm not looking for "The Best" (no rich dead relatives that I know of). But something good enough that a little proofreading is all that is needed.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HorridRedDog

I can't find the "Express" version at all, nor even a used OpticBook at that price.



Lets say that I go that way, I have access to an 8 megapixel Nikon camera.

What are the recomendations on OCR software? I'm not looking for "The Best" (no rich dead relatives that I know of). But something good enough that a little proofreading is all that is needed.

That's for the ABBYY software separately, not the scanner. As far as I know, there is NO cheap, easy, fast way to scan books.

ABBYY is the "best" on the market. it's also the most expensive on the market as well. TANSTAAFL. It is listed to be able to convert raw image files (like TIFF) into OCR'ed files, but, having a 3600 scanner, I never have bothered to try.

If you want to use a digital camera, remember, optical wide angle and zoom only. Anything else just cuts out pixels from the area of the image you use, defeating the whole purpose of having a high megapixel camera in the first place.

And no matter what way you go, you WILL have to proof the e-book you create, which means you will have to read it, marking every little mistake you see, and fix them....

[thinkpad]

I've placed an order for the Opticbook 3600. Can't wait to try it out. Some reader comment on Amazon suggests that it comes with the OmniPage software while others on this thread seems to have gotten the FineReader software.

I want to try out to things. Scan a pocketbook and just turn it into a PDF with no OCR interpretation and one where I scan and run it through the OCR and later convert it to mobipocket. I will place both on the Kindle 2 and compare the result. I'm hoping that the PDF-scan will be readable enough so I don't have to OCR scan and Proof-read which seems to take a lot of time.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

I've placed an order for the Opticbook 3600. Can't wait to try it out. Some reader comment on Amazon suggests that it comes with the OmniPage software while others on this thread seems to have gotten the FineReader software....

My OpticBook 3600 came with a CD-ROM that had both the OmniPage AND the FineReader Sprint 6 (and other) applications on it.

[guyanonymous]

If you don't mind "destroying a book", a photocopier that scans to PDFs is your best friend.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

If you don't mind "destroying a book", a photocopier that scans to PDFs is your best friend.

Except many of the people here are talking about rareish/hard to find books-- the last books you would want to destroy. ANY cheap flat-bed scanner can be used for books you are willing to destroy. And better hope that PDF converter is perfect-- because PDF is not a fun format to edit.

[guyanonymous]

Ardeegee - very very true.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Originally Posted by HorridRedDog

I am seriously considering this item. I have some material older than old and this might be what I need.

HoverCam scans your documents from on high
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/01/hovercam-scans.php

Seen and used one a few years back, though I wasn't scanning books rather old photographs to shop some color into them.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything old enough to warrant me scanning them. Plus I'm sure if I do, I could always spend a little and get a digital copy of it without me spending countless hours and hundreds of dollars on hardware and software in order to save a few dead-tree books.