Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!sdcsvax!ucbvax!decvax!dartvax!merchant
From: merchant@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Merchant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Digitize vs Scan?
Message-ID: <7021@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Sep-87 10:36:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.7021
Posted: Wed Sep  9 10:36:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 06:04:53 EDT
References: <55@mtunj.ATT.COM>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 32
Keywords: which better? articles

In article <55@mtunj.ATT.COM>, H. Moskovitz writes:
> I am getting ready to put down some $$$ toward an image input device. Question
> is, should I go for a scanner (the Thunderscan in particular) or a video
> digitizer.
>
> I would like to hear from folks who have experience with both so that I can get
> an educated opinion as to the pro's and con's of each.

Uh, depends on what you're scanning.

If all of your scanning is stuff from books, magazines, photographs, and the
like, then get Thunderscan (or better).  They give you very good quality from
printed material.  Unfortunately, you're limitted to pictures.  If you wanted
to scan something other than a picture, you would not be able to do it.

Video scanners give you the flexibility, but at a major cost in quality of the
image.  I used MacVision (and, admittedly, not a good camera) to try to capture
a photograph.  It was very difficult to set up and the quality of the final scan
was not as good as Thunderscan would have been.  However, I also set up the
camera on the roof of a building and got some good shots of the Long Island
Sound with the Throgs Neck Bridge in the background, something that would be
annoying to do with Thunderscan, as I would have to take a photograph and then
scan that.

One curiousity, for those of you who may have tried this with MacVision:
I just recently received a very nice four-head VCR.  The feature of the
four heads is that when I hit Pause, it does not shake and the image is still
very good on the screen.  Anyone know what to expect when I feed the image
to MacVision?  (Just so I know what to expect so I don't get too disappointed.)
--
"This time it's forever,                 Peter Merchant (merchant@dartvax.UUCP)
 Love is the answer."