Category: Microfiche Scanning

October 10, 2011

A Microfiche Machine Instead of Microfiche Viewer

The difference between a microfiche viewer and a microfiche machine that scans microfiche cards is in the resulting file. A microfiche viewer lets you view an image by projecting the information on a screen. If you want to view a second image, you move the microfiche to a different position. This type of microfiche machine is totally manual and can not store any information for later use. A microfiche machine that scans has many advantages. These microfiche machines are called microfiche scanners. This microfiche machine is designed to create a digital file of the images. When a microfiche machine creates a pdf or jpeg image, you can store the resulting image on a computer for viewing and for later use.

A Microfiche machine is very expensive and I don’t recommend you go buy a microfiche scanner for scanning a few microfiche cards. Instead, you can contact a company that has a microfiche machine for scanning microfiche cards, and have them convert your microfiche. Companies that have a microfiche machine can make whatever type file you like from your microfiche. Since they already have a microfiche machine, they can charge you a very low microfiche scanning cost to convert your microfiche. This is the most economical method to convert your microfiche cards.

It is recommended that you find the right company with a microfiche machine but also with reputation and integrity. The microfiche machine should be high quality and the operators need to be experts. You can read more about this services in related article or you can give us a call.

September 13, 2011

Reselling Microfiche Scanning Services

Reselling microfiche scanning services is an excellent way for your company, organization, or you to have access to a stream of revenue without investing in equipment, labor, office space, training, or liabilities. For example, let us say you work for a litigation company and one of your clients- in addition to needing documents converted to PDF- also has a collection of microfiche containing payroll records. Let us also assume that the set of fiche contains 1,000 cards.

It doesn’t make sense to perform the microfiche scanning on your own for the following reasons:

Cost. Why buy a new microfiche scanner for $65,000 to digitize something worth around $4,000?
Inferior scanners. There are scanners that are cheap (like $10,000) but what type of quality would you expect from low level camera technology?
Labor, training, workflow. Do you really want to incur money up front costs to expand your company just to handle 1000 COM fiche?

Anyway, after you spend some time investigating all of these options and have meetings about the feasibility of your company doing the microfiche scanning, you will realize that it is more efficient to outsource the microfiche scanning.

Since Generation Imaging is a wholesale service bureau you will get a below market conversion price, which will give you room to add on to the price to your end client, i.e. reselling the microfiche scanning service. After all you are the one responsible for taking care of your end client, you are taking the risk, and you will be the one servicing the end client.

Generation Imaging can be your silent partner for reselling microfiche scanning services, or if you totally don’t want to get involved you could simply have us go direct and we’ll give you a commission- it’s your choice.

September 8, 2011

Digitize Negatives Could Help The National Archives

The National Archives hold information military service, family information, a personal history questionnaire, affidavits of comrades-in-arms, relatives, neighbors and medical, just to name some. Many of these files are in some form of negative microfilm. To digitize negatives and create digital files from this information will require a microfilm scanning conversion. Why would you want to digitize negatives? Well, by doing so, you can create an digital system that could hols all the information on computers. Organizations like these would like to digitize negatives but have not done so, in many cases, for monetary reasons.

Historians also like to digitize negatives because they spend a great deal of time researching records in libraries and going through books. When we digitize negatives, we create a file that is much more accessible than a hardcopy book. We Like helping historians and other people that like to look for old records, like people looking for ancestor’s information. After we digitize negatives from microfiche cards of microfilm rolls, their work becomes much easier and they appreciate it so much that they let you know about it.

After we digitize negatives, the digital files that are created can be viewed on one computer or multiple computers at the same time, depending on the network setup. Another benefit to digitize negatives is that digital images can be e-mail and shared through the internet just like any other digital picture. This really helps people that are interested in working on the same project but are not in the same location. If you an interest to digitize negatives for your own work, microfilm scanning can really help you.

August 25, 2011

Microfiche To Digital Plus OCR

Recent trends in the Microfiche to Digital imaging has included an additional process called OCR. This process adds significant value to a microfiche to digital conversion because of the increased functionality of the final product. OCR refers to the Optical Character Recognition and involves the process of reading information from an image after the microfiche to digital conversion has taken place. The software that is designed to perform the OCR then creates a text layer of the information it gathers from the image.

After the microfilm to digital and the OCR process has completed, you should be able to work with the file just as if the image had been created using a text editor. This means that the microfiche to digital process creates a picture of the image and the OCR creates a text version of the same image. The benefits from this conversion are immense. For example, if you where interested in finding information about a person listed in the document, you could do an automated search and a text editor would locate the name for you. This would not be possible without an efficient microfiche to digital conversion.

Consider the following, Last year, a historian approached us for a microfiche to digital conversion. He had been working with a local library gathering information from old newspaper that had been microfilmed years earlier. Without a microfilm to digital conversion, he was limited to viewing a frame at a time on a viewer and looking for information by reading off the screen. Needless to say, he was wasting lots of time. After performing a microfiche to digital and OCR process, he was able to work from his own computer and perform searches instantly.

August 23, 2011

Convert Microfiche

Although there are technically several ways to convert microfiche to PDF, TIFF, or JPEG, only one of them will deliver to you a high quality product, in a fast amount of time, at a low price. That method, of course, would be to send your microfiche to Generation Imaging in Florida via USPS, Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL, or via courier. But let us quickly go through the other methods to convert microfiche and see why they aren’t truly options:

Buy your own scanner. Sure you can get a ScanPro 2000 for a few thousand dollars. We have one of those- but we wouldn’t dare use them to convert microfiche for you. The reason why the ScanPro is inexpensive compared to the high production microfiche scanners is because the optics are poor for scanning microfiche; the high reduction ratio of microfiche (24x to 48x), lack of advanced quality filters, and rudimentary camera optics are all factors that are obstacles for creating a quality image. I didn’t even mention that you have to load one card at a time for the ScanPro. Although the ScanPro has its uses for other media, and it does come in handy for us for odd microform we may come across (it’s our business to receive all types of weird film) it’s not suitable for producing an acceptable quality to convert microfiche.
Buy high-end scanners. High production/high optics microfiche scanners (what Generation Imaging uses) can run you anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 each depending on make and model. In addition to maintenance costs, you must consider training, managing labor, workflow, and technical support.
Flat-bed scanner. PC scanners are unable to convert microfiche (the magnification is too low).
Reader printer. Reader printers cost around $3000 to $8000. The manual labor is very time consuming to convert microfiche to digital image (one frame at a time).
Used scanners, used reader printers, etc. Although used scanning equipment sounds good on paper because the prices are cut by thousands of dollars, they don’t come with any warranties. When you consider that reader printers are known to break down and parts are needed, and the same can be said of microfiche scanners.

Ultimately, it is more cost effective and safer to allow Generation Imaging to convert microfiche for your project. You can plug the numbers yourself and weight the risk factors. If you have a small volume project which requires you to convert microfiche, it’s a no-brainer to use Generation Imaging.