Microfilm Scanning

[bobj-kirk]

Hello Everyone,

I am not sure if this is the right place, but I need some computer technical advice. I am thinking of buying a film scanner to scan microfilm for genealogical use.

My problem is that we have a small Family History Centre with no method of making hard copies of the microfilms other than manually transcribing them. In addition to that, the FHC is only open two hours a week so you have to write pretty fast. There are no other FHCs within about 750 miles.

I am not looking for an expensive item (I guess not many on this board would be ;-). I have been looking on eBay and am hoping to pay in the order to a few hundred $US. My trouble is I have no evperience with any scanners, so I don't know what would be suitable.

I have pretty much decided that the large old microfilm printers that they used to have in libraries are pretty unsuitable because even if they were free, they would cost $500 just to ship. Besides that they don't connect directly to a PC and they require expensive toner cartridges and would be expensive or impossible to repair.

So, here is a list of what I would like to see:
1) High enough resolution for the B&W scanning of microfilm records.
2) A direct connection to a PC. Pretty much anything is okay, SCSI, Serial, USB.
3) Reasonable speed, under a minute for a single frame.
4) A preview mode that scans in perhaps a quarter minute.
5) The ability to at least pass long rolls of microfilm through it.
6) Reasonably small and portable.

The cheaper scanners I have seen so far do not have proper equipment for winding long roll film. So, I am willing to construct my own winder if necessary provided the equipment has the ability to let the film pass through.

One of my biggest questions about such a setup is how to position the film. Some scanners actually open up to let you manually position film. Others do not seem to do so. I presume if they don't open, you would have to position the frame by preview scanning it and then adjusting it until it was properly centred.

A related question would be the software that would be used to scan the film. Scanners often come with drivers that let them be used by a variety of software. The most common software seems to be Adobe Pagemaker, but there are various versions of this. In addition, there are other packages available. I don't know what would be suitable for this type of work.

I would really appreciate hearing about anybody's experience with scanning of microfilm to a PC.

Thanks
-Bob

[mesklin]

Bob

A word of caution. If anyone offers you a Fuji Viewer/Printer, shake head and say 'No thank you'. Even if it's free. Even if they offer to deliver it to your door.
You can NOT get the special paper. It is obsolete, and people can't give them away.

Mesklin