Converted pBook to eBook?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I plan to do some serious scanning when this thing is available:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/book-saver

hmm, that thing does look good! Wonder what the pricing will be (and availability, naturally!)

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

this would probably be very expensive, but it does provide an option to those who might be more willing to buy a used copy then do the hard stuff themselves then buy an ebook that they feel is more expensive ;D /a bit of sarcasm in there

It's more for stuff that will never exist in ebook form than anything else. Unless you put very little value on your time.

[pendragginp]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I plan to do some serious scanning when this thing is available:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/book-saver

That's what I'm waiting for too. And actually the projected price of $150 (if they stick to it) isn't too bad.

[pendragginp]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

hmm, that thing does look good! Wonder what the pricing will be (and availability, naturally!)

This is from last January - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...zVAxOBfk15dLuA

The release date has changed so often though I'm beginning to wonder if they're being challenged on it; or if it will just end up being vaporware.

[garygibsonsf]

That Ionscanner does look seriously cool, and I thought in the past about doing such a conversion. But I'm finding over time quite a few of the books I would have converted - mostly slightly obscure sf novels from the Eighties and Nineties - are one by one appearing on Kindle for just a pound or two, uploaded and republished by the authors themselves. I thought I'd have to scan KW Jeter's Farewell Horizontal, but there it was, the other day, for pennies. Now I'm going to wait for the rest of them to get around to it as well.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

That Ionscanner does look seriously cool, and I thought in the past about doing such a conversion. But I'm finding over time quite a few of the books I would have converted - mostly slightly obscure sf novels from the Eighties and Nineties - are one by one appearing on Kindle for just a pound or two, uploaded and republished by the authors themselves. I thought I'd have to scan KW Jeter's Farewell Horizontal, but there it was, the other day, for pennies. Now I'm going to wait for the rest of them to get around to it as well.

That may be true for English books, but hardly so for Dutch ones...

[AnemicOak]

I've done one book, one because I'm pretty sure it being digitized isn't going to happen for a long time (if ever) and two because I wanted to go through the whole scan/ocr/proof process to have some experience with how things worked.

It was a bit tedious as I didn't want to destroy the pbook so I did each page on a flat bed, but it wasn't too bad since I wasn't in a hurry (I just did a handful of chapters on my lunch hour each day until I was done). For OCR I used the Finereader engine that came with the aging Microtek scanner I worked with (didn't want to buy the full version for a one time project/experiment) and was surprised how well it worked. I checked the text against the physical book page by page and the whole process scanning, OCR to final ePub took about 8 hours.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DMB

This looks good. I imagine it will be rather expensive though.

I don't think I'd find the time to use it often, however. I bought something for converting VHS tapes to DVD but hardly did any in the end. I have a better record on converting CDs to MP3s but still have hundreds of CDs waiting.

I know what you mean. I bought an Ion USB turntable years ago, but have only digitized a handful of LP's with it. Digitizing is only the first step, then you have to clean up the audio, break into tracks, pull together the metadata - it is just too much work, especially when you can usually just purchase a CD or MP3s directly.

However, I have ripped our large CD collection to audio files, because it is a heck of a lot more convenient.

But digitizing books, I like to think, will be different. Still a lot of work to get good quality ebooks out the other end, but I'm up for trying it out.

[anamardoll]

Yeah, this is definitely for stuff that you JUST CAN'T GET otherwise. I'd happily pay for the ebook versions and save myself the bother.

Case in point, you take my Elfquest volumes. Lovely books, pretty colors. You can't buy them in ebook form because the Pinis -- wonderful people that they are -- have decided to offer them all free on their website. Which IS lovely, but now I'm looking at Print Screening the lot of them or just cutting the book and stacking it on the scanner. Which is going to take more time? My money is on the Print Screen key taking longer.

AND some of their comics that were colored specifically for my Special Edition are only available in B&W on their site. So I'd lose those if I don't go the cut-and-scan route.

*sigh*

On the other hand, the volumes, when I bought them, were super expensive and I value them rather highly -- more so than I usually do physical books. It's a conundrum.

[rhmorrison]

I converted "So gewinnt man Mühle" into a PDF using a scanner and OCR software, BUT with the permission of the author (Manfred Nüscheler).

[graycyn]

Done it, will do it again. ONLY for books that are not available and not likely to be available any time soon as ebook. Some aren't easily available in paper either. Mostly some nostalgia type books from my childhood.

So far no need to destroy any books, I use a portable VuPoint Magic Wand scanner, which, as long as the books you are scanning have enough margin (and most of what I scan does), works quite well. Scanning a book takes around an hour. That's the fast part. Organizing the images, renaming, doing the OCR, creating clean HTML, putting that into epub form and proofreading is what takes the time.

I find it satisfying and it's something I so in my spare time. Waiting on a long download... I proofread a chapter. Watching TV, scan a book. It's still slow though. But the end result is nice. And as I'm a re-reader, each book I do I'll get more enjoyment out of later down the line.

Sooner or later, I probably will cut up a book in order to scan it, just haven't gotten there yet.

[mayoi]

I started on one using my scanner and FreeOCR. I figured at the rate I was going it would be much better to just read the *#&# DTB and then donate it!

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Yeah, this is definitely for stuff that you JUST CAN'T GET otherwise. I'd happily pay for the ebook versions and save myself the bother.

Case in point, you take my Elfquest volumes. Lovely books, pretty colors. You can't buy them in ebook form because the Pinis -- wonderful people that they are -- have decided to offer them all free on their website. Which IS lovely, but now I'm looking at Print Screening the lot of them or just cutting the book and stacking it on the scanner. Which is going to
take more time? My money is on the Print Screen key taking longer.

AND some of their comics that were colored specifically for my Special Edition are only available in B&W on their site. So I'd lose those if I don't go the cut-and-scan route.

*sigh*

On the other hand, the volumes, when I bought them, were super expensive and I value them rather highly -- more so than I usually do physical books. It's a conundrum.

Hopefully those will come out eventually. Ideally by the time we see mirasol readers.
Phil Phoglio has done well with his digital offering I believe, and they move in the same circles.

I gave most of my comics to my son, but I did retain two copies of Fantasy Quarterly #1, one signed by the Pinis and one unsigned.

[kevinp]

I've scanned a few that were the last in a series and weren't available as ebooks. I just use a scanner and Finereader Pro set to scan continuously. While the carriage is sliding back, you have enough time to turn the page, so I don't have to chop up my books. FR Pro does a pretty good job of eliminating page numbers, etc. so there's little proofing to do.

[Gwen Morse]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Yeah, this is definitely for stuff that you JUST CAN'T GET otherwise. I'd happily pay for the ebook versions and save myself the bother.

Case in point, you take my Elfquest volumes. Lovely books, pretty colors. You can't buy them in ebook form because the Pinis -- wonderful people that they are -- have decided to offer them all free on their website. Which IS lovely, but now I'm looking at Print Screening the lot of them or just cutting the book and stacking it on the scanner. Which is going to take more time? My money is on the Print Screen key taking longer.

Shade and sweet water, fellow EQ fan!

I solved this dilemma by torrenting the files. Since they're available online at the Warp Graphics site I didn't feel like I was denying the Pinis any future income. It does save you from trying to capture all the pages and/or cracking the spines on all your books.

You do have to be careful if you're honest about only keeping what you own in paper versions. I ended up with a copy of the Wavedancers series which I didn't own, as well as Jink (I only have the first 3 issues) So, I deleted the unowned issues.

I did buy Wavedancers while on vacation in France. Maybe I ought to download those, again.