DRM'd books

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

No, it isn't available "online" anywhere, except at Amazon, and it's Topaz DRM'd. Not even "illegitimately" is it available. The only way for me to get this particular book in electronic format was to scan it myself, which is what I did.

From my experience with the darknet, I think the piracy issue is overstated, at least in the case of the mystery series that I like to read. When I've gotten desperate enough to look there, I've had little to NO luck finding anything.
Now if I was into contemporary paranormal romance.... , it'd be a different story.

ETA: not that there's anything wrong with contemporary paranormal romance, mind you...

You can't swing a virtual cat without hitting tons of shared paranormal romance. It's everywhere!!

[latchkeyed]

for the record, I think there are some great reasons to scan books from paper, mostly having to do with verifiability.

As we saw with the recent review of german epubs, many of the books being sold as e-books are in fact scanned and (poorly) OCR'd versions of the printed book. However, the publisher never gives you the page scans so you have no way of checking whether the OCR error you found is an error or not, or just have confidence that the section you are quoting somewhere is actually being cited as published, page number or formatting and all.

As for reasons you might want to scan from a book reader:
- fast (~750 "pages"/hour)
- easy (page turning becomes a button press)
- cheap (you can do it with a single consumer grade camera tied to a pole)

That said, if you're using something like the bkrpr.org book ripper here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjRKeHPRa2k

You keep the speed, can use physical books you already own, and get the page images for ultimate verifiability, all for the addition of a second camera, a plastic piece, and turning the pages.

Whatever fits your needs.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by latchkeyed

for the record, I think there are some great reasons to scan books from paper, mostly having to do with verifiability.

As we saw with the recent review of german epubs, many of the books being sold as e-books are in fact scanned and (poorly) OCR'd versions of the printed book. However, the publisher never gives you the page scans so you have no way of checking whether the OCR error you found is an error or not, or just have confidence that the section you are quoting somewhere is actually being cited as published, page number or formatting and all.

As for reasons you might want to scan from a book reader:
- fast (~750 "pages"/hour)
- easy (page turning becomes a button press)
- cheap (you can do it with a single consumer grade camera tied to a pole)

That said, if you're using something like the bkrpr.org book ripper here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjRKeHPRa2k

You keep the speed, can use physical books you already own, and get the page images for ultimate verifiability, all for the addition of a second camera, a plastic piece, and turning the pages.

Whatever fits your needs.

I showed the plans for the bkrpr to my husband. We have everything but the second camera, and the time to put it together.
The scanning I was doing, and the reason it took me so long, is because I'm using an HP flatbed scanner, and I'm having to manually run the software, get up, turn page, position book again, etc. and so forth. An easier solution would definitely be welcome.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

The scanning I was doing, and the reason it took me so long, is because I'm using an HP flatbed scanner, and I'm having to manually run the software, get up, turn page, position book again, etc. and so forth. An easier solution would definitely be welcome.

Does your scanner have any buttons across the front? The Microtek scanner I'm using has a text button on the front so it's just a matter of flipping the pages replacing the book and hitting the button to do each set of two pages which are then saved to an RTF file. No going back the the computer each time. I've got about an hour into my project and have managed 105 pages all proofed and checked (I've been proofing and checking a chapter at a time).

The Microtek uses ABBYY Finereader for OCR and I've found it about 98% accurate which helps too.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Does your scanner have any buttons across the front? The Microtek scanner I'm using has a text button on the front so it's just a matter of flipping the pages replacing the book and hitting the button to do each set of two pages which are then saved to an RTF file. No going back the the computer each time. I've got about an hour into my project and have managed 105 pages all proofed and checked (I've been proofing and checking a chapter at a time).

The Microtek uses ABBYY Finereader for OCR and I've found it about 98% accurate which helps too.

No such luck. This is an HP all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax deal. The only buttons I have are the numerals to dial with and the main scan/copy/fax buttons. I need a better set up.

[latchkeyed]

I showed the plans for the bkrpr to my husband. We have everything but the second camera, and the time to put it together.

Even with just the one camera you sould be able to get a much faster scanning speed than the HP you're using. Just take whatever other bkrpr speed estimates and divide by half

If you're going to embark on another 12 hour scanning run, you might save time overall by using the first few hours to go to the hardware store and put the bkrpr together, then make up the time with faster scanning speed. Would 300-400 pages/hour (with the one camera) be a compelling enough upgrade?

[phenomshel]

It would be for me, but Chris says no. He doesn't have time to put it together and doesn't want to outlay the initial fifty dollars or whatever to have the plexi bent. Oh well...back to wasting time with the flatbed.