I haven't tried the hover cam on the Mac but back when I was trying to use it on my Windows laptop with Docuscan plus, I got horrible results. I went out and bought a flat bed scanner; much better results with that. The scanner with Docuscan works great on the Mac too. I just don't have any faith in these camera based approaches.
On Sep 25, 2013, at 4:57 AM, erik burggraaf <[email protected]> wrote: > This solution meets the requirement of being the fastest, but it falls over > in a few ways. > > first, a double sided sheet feeder is an expensive proposition, even though > you can probably find a voscan compatible one. If you're in a commercial > setting such as a university transcription service you might be able to > justify the cost, but for an individual it doesn't really make that much > sense. > > Second, you have to cut the books. The books themselves can be quite > expensive. I preferred to double up with my classmates when I was in > college. I scanned some one else's book pertimes because the books costed > between 70 and 150 dollars a piece. You may want to resell the books and get > some of your money back later. Again, if you're a professional transcription > service this might be a good bet, but for an individual it's not really the > way to go. > > Third, While there are good tutorials on making the whole > voscan/readiris/finereader system work done by knowledgeable people in plain > language, the fact of the matter is, setting up the duel software system > initially takes a bit of extra overhead. I've never been much tempted > myself. $200 to get two pieces of software and merry them together is > reasonable enough on cost, but I know that most of my clients are not happy > with the idea of two programs to do one job. > > I like the camera system myself. I'm not a professional transcription > service, so the idea of taking half an hour to scan a book that used to take > me three hours really doesn't faze me. The camera is portable so I can take > it on the road if I want. I can also fold it out of the way to save desk > space if I need to. I use an eyepal, because I had access to funding and > because I got a corporate discount on it through my access technology > company. I haven't had great experiences with it under windows, but on the > mac it seems to work really well despite not being designed well at all from > a software standpoint. I also have a hovercam T5V. While I mostly use it > under windows with k1000, it can also be used with docuscan plus on the mac. > Docuscan is cloud based and I'm not very happy with that aspect of it, but I > like the hovercam hardware better than the EyePal. It feels sturdier and > it's cheeper. Not to mention the docuscan software is actually built for mac > as opposed to the jury-rigged eyepal approach. Out of pocket, docuscan and > the hovercam are cheeper than the eyepal. If your alternative is an > industrial grade double-sided sheet feeding scanner, then docuscan and a > hovercam are going to be cheeper than that as well. If you don't mind > splicing sets of pages together and you buy a consumer grade single sided > sheet feeder, you could get one for a reasonable price. I don't think it > would be as fast as a camera, but it would be less maintenance because you > wouldn't have to flip pages manually. > > Hope this helps, > > Erik Burggraaf > Follow my series of articles about setting up a small business through the > ontario disability support program at http://www.erik-burggraaf.com/blog > Ebony Consulting toll-free: 1-888-255-5194 > or on the web at http://www.erik-burggraaf.com > > On 2013-09-24, at 1:55 PM, Anne Robertson <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello James, >> >> If you can take the books apart, you'd be fastest with the kind of scanner >> that will scan both sides of a sheet and also has an automatic feed. The >> application VueScan can probably handle one of these and it produces very >> good images. >> >> However, VueScan is not good for OCR. It will do it, but not very well. You >> can, however, feed the file of images to ABBYY FineReader Express for Mac >> which does an excellent job on OCR. >> >> Here is a link to the page showing which scanners are supported by VueScan: >> <http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm#supported> >> >> Cheers, >> >> Anne >> >> >> On 24 Sep 2013, at 15:41, James Lee <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hi All, >>> >>> I'm wondering what would be the fastest way for a college student to scan >>> books with accurate OCR? >>> I know there are cameras out there for scanning documents like hover cam >>> and pearl, but I haven't actually used them. >>> I could be wrong, but pearl is only works with Open Book, right? >>> Can someone share their experience, and recommend what to buy? >>> Especially comparison would be very helpful. >>> Thanks so much, >>> >>> JL >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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