Thursday, June 08, 2006

How fast can a scanner operate?

This is the eternal question. Can a sheetfed scanner rated to do 200 pages per minute really do that? Can the software and PC that are used to operate the scanner keep up with it? I fondly remember a manager -- many years ago -- who wondered why our scanning operation wasn't getting the throughput that the hardware company said we would. It took him a long time to realize fully how the hardware really worked and the problems (e.g., humidity) that could cause everything to slow down. There was the speed the hardware company stated in its promotional literature, then there was reality. And the two were different.

Steve wrote a comment on the Atiz BookDrive DIY post about the speed of a Kirtas machine in production mode versus that of the manual DIY. I've seen the Kirtas APT 1200 and know that someone must be present with the machine. That person should be able to do more than just watch the scanner, but that is not always what happens.

It would be interesting if someone took several of these book scanners and did a side-by-side comparison using the same books and operators. How did each work? How many pages per hour could they do? How easy were they to use? Which had the best quality. That kind of information would be quite revealing.

Anybody up for the challenge?


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