Hi David,
First, if I may ask, do you have Kurzweil 1000? I ask because you
mention it below and it now, as of the last patch I think it is,
supports the Hovercam Solo 8. This unit is supposed to be much better
than the older Hovercam which took pictures at 5, rather than 8,
megapixels. I have not used the Solo 8 at all, frankly, I was put off by
the older Hovercam, I don't know if it was me, but I could never get
good recognition out of it. The newer model may well solve this problem,
but I haven't read any reviews from a blind user's point of view.
I have also, for some years now, heard about the Kodak Sceye.
Again, this is supported by Kurzweil, I'm not sure how good the software
which comes with it may be. It is a 10 MP camera. I have not tried
either hardware or software due to the expense, nor have I seen reviews
from a blind user's point of view.
Sorry if all this isn't helpful, I just wanted to put out some
ideas which may be worth a look. I would be interested in hearing what
you finally go for and how you like it.
HTH,
Aman
On 2016-02-10 6:17 PM, David Griffith wrote:
I had for some time considered that the Docuscan/Hovercam combination would be the most cost effective replacement especially as I use both Mac and PC.
However the Docuscan Hovercam bundle appears to have disappeared. This makes me suspect that it did not actually work that well. In fact the options for visually impaired people appears to have contracted since I last looked at it. The camera scanning solutions at Computer Room, Humanware Sight and Sound or RNIB websites are either non-existent or extremely limited. For example Sight and Sound appear only now to sell the Pearl open Book system for over £1,000 and a Freedom Scientific version of EyePal at £1,700.
Both these systems appear to lock the camera into proprietary software solutions as far as I am aware.
I can buy a hovercam "Visualiser" from Amazon for about £400 but the reviews are pretty dreadful and there does not seem any reassurance that the Camera will work well with For example Kurzweil, Abby Finereader etc. I would be happy to buy Docuscan as well if it was guaranteed to work well and reliably with the camera.
I am keen not to repeat the mistake of the Eyepal where basically a high quality camera was let down by buggy unreliable and frustrating software.
What camera based document OCR scanning setups are people using effectively now?
David Griffith
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