Czur scanner build your own digital library - Indiegogo (1)I need to behold and use a Czur scanner before I confirm the promo.

Let’s hope that  CzurTek has in fact lived up to its promise of a low-cost device able to scan a 400-page book in five minutes and do plenty else.

Just the same, it’s looking more likely than ever that I’ll find out on schedule.

Based in Shenzhen City, Guangdong, in China, CzurTek says in an email and Web posting that it still expects to meet its January deadline for deliveries worldwide. Below is one of the photos CzurTek uploaded to help back up the statement. The company as of this writing has raised $413,653 from 1,759 backers via Indiegogo.

Nine days are left in the campaign. Cost of the scanner for people in the U.S. is now $199 and $35 shipping (go here to learn more), although the final retail price is to be $400. The company says it will donate some units to schools. CzurTek officials are especially excited by the possibility of the scanners being used to create e-text for TTS for people with dyslexia.

Meanwhile, in a comment on Indiegogo addressing some common concerns, CzurTek’s Hank Zang says the scanner will “only work with Windows OS” via USB, “but via WiFi, scanned images will be uploaded to the Czur Cloud,” so Macs, iPhones, iPads and other devices “can manage the images.”

I hope that Mac and linux drivers will come in time. It also would be good for use of the cloud to be optional, if it isn’t already.

czurtekProduction

6 COMMENTS

  1. @Frank: I myself had considered asking for a review unit in advance, thanks; yes, I would still pay for it. That said, I would like to give the company enough time to nail things down sufficiently so that unit is indeed representative of what people will actually be getting. Needless to say, my goal would be not to boost sales but simply to speak my mind. Of course, if the scanner lives up to expectations, the end result indeed would be a sales increase.

  2. I’ve had one for a few days. Its an awesome device, very nice hardware. The software provided is for Windows 7 or above only, but is very functional. The features and scan experience are not something many people are ready for however. There is a regular procedure one has to go through to prepare and scan, post process, ocr and bind.. which a lot of people don’t understand.. or why. So while very capable using it requires a bit of a learning curve for most people. If you just want to use it for “Scanning” the hurtles are fewer.. but it has a default mode of using a mobile phone as a hand controller for connecting it to home wifi, and will upload scans to a personal storage account in the cloud.. unless you connect a USB cable to it and a PC.. then it automatically senses this and goes into USB capture mode. If you don’t have a USB cable, but an HDMI cable connected into goes into live presentation mode simply produces a 1080p display via HDMI. There is also a tiny microphone hole I haven’t quite figured out. It is detected as a UVC compatible video device on Windows 7, Mac OSX 10.6 and 10.8 and Linux — I’ve used the provided Windows software and native software tools in each to capture images. I blog about it and youtube it from http://www.johnwillis.com

  3. @John: Thanks for the helpful link to your look at the Czur scanner. The one I bought arrived weeks after we had expected it. I myself messed with the scanner and found the software associated with it was not ready for prime time. But I have wanted to give the company more time to get its act together. Either Chris Meadows or I, most likely Chris, will be reviewing the Czur in the near future. If the interface still isn’t as easy as the publicity for the scanner suggested, we’ll say so. My impression so far, based on your own explorations as well as my very brief one, is that the Czur could be very capable hardware but presently is not right for the masses. Perhaps new software will change things for the better and we’ll see the hoped-for interface. – David

    • David, I would have to agree with you, but I also bought an Atiz Booksnap in 2009 and it came with very similar software. The workflow pattern was also similar and the [awkward] controls similar. I think its not so much a fault of the software, as normal users don’t anticipate their needs when taking on a book scanning project. The software has all the tools.. just very poor documentation and there aren’t a lot of tutorials to walk people through the process. Lucion FileCenter has a similar purpose but slightly different workflow and better documentation and online tutorials. I use FileCenter with a Fujitsu fi-4220C (a very old sheetfed and flatbed scanner). FileCenter treats the process and a simple image scan operation and dumps out an OCR’d PDF by default.. that has pros and cons.. its easy, but undoing all it does if you want to improve the final document takes more work. Most people would be Extremely happy if VueScan by Hammirick software supported this scanner, VueScan is available on Windows, Mac and Linux and has the same GUI across all three platforms. Its basically an Image scanner only tool.. to make PDFs and then OCR them you have to do the post processing yourself. Mac users might prefer ExactScan though since that has a traditional OSX user interface, and it will use VueScan support as a device driver. So my thoughts are all over the map here, but a simple Image Scanning software tool first.. or getting support into VueScan first would be the best choice. Then people would “learn” they need a PDF tool and then learn why they care if a PDF has been OCR’s or not. Like I said its a Learning curve. The current software in my opinion [Does Too Much].. most people aren’t ready for it.. or don’t expect to have to spend time learning it. Those people would be better served with something like VueScan.. or the native Windows Image Scanner, or OSX Image Capture software. — But the Hardware is Outstanding! The 2D rectalinearization and 3D flattening curve correction is spot on. The controls for Color or B&W contrast, sharpness and staturation are in the software.. just not explained how to use them. As far as I can tell the 2D and 3D features are performed [inside] the device, the images as offloaded are corrected.. so it could be used with any software that supports it with a device driver. And the device will cache images as fast as you an click the button and turn the page.. it then slowly offloads them via USB in the background without interrupting continued scanning.

  4. May 28, 2016 – Memorial Day weekend .. an update to whats been going on. The company has been focused on getting these scanners into their new owners hands. The comments section for the project has been a mixed bag of happy and unhappy people, some simply getting their shipment.. but I think that’s a function of the owners providing their phone number for the shippers, who seem to not accept packages without a delivery address phone number. Once they get that, the owners seem to get their scanners in a very few days. — European owners seemed to get US power adapters by default and that caused a lot of pain, especially since it looks like over 50 percent of the people ordering them were in Europe or places without US power standards. The US customers seemed to have few problems, unless it was ordering a white versus black unit, or they couldn’t figure out the setup. — from comments they are setting up a US presence both for their cloud service and sales and support. They were also receptive to the idea of making the cloud destination a personal Dropbox or GDrive account, they even suggested Evernote would be a target in the near future versions of the device firmware. These scanners have wi-fi built-in and a more sophoisticated mobile device “controller app” on iOS and Android is possible. I think the chipset is the SPCA6330A which is in many Action Cameras and Drone cameras with Wi-Fi connected LiveFeeds. — for all the claims of “lock in” I really don’t get that sense, they are a small company and moving very very fast. I contacted Vuescan as a customer and they didn’t think they would be adding this device. So I continued looking at using native tools on Windows, Linux and Mac for creating hi-res images and PDF documents. The hardware is very useful as it is, the software and documentation is lacking. I am guessing, but it appears the production line people will be changing to software developers soon and begin revving the softwar releases.

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