Hardware Review: The Justice Visions Portable Scanner Camera (PSC)
Reviewed by Barry BrahierVendor: Justice Visions
Platform: Windows only
Price: $499.00
Product Website
What is it?
The Portable Scanner Camera (PSC) is a scanner unlike any I've seen. No flatbed, no cover, no moving parts, just a camera mounted on a stand. The PSC is about 18 inches tall and connects via USB 2.0. It weighs 420 grams (about a pound), folds up to store in a pouch, and doesn't need a power supply.
I'm old enough to remember when libraries didn't have copiers (or my hometown library was just really behind). If you wanted a copy of something, you either hand copied it, or arranged to have the library staff photograph it for you. You got an 8x10 B&W glossy of whatever it was you were interested in. What they used was a still film camera mounted pointing straight down. It's called a copy stand and they are still used today. The PSC is essentially a copy stand, except it is digital and ultra-portable. Think about capturing high-quality images of documents anywhere you can bring your notebook/TabletPC. If I would have had this when I started my grad degree, I could have paid for it with the money saved on photocopying journal articles. Go to the library, get the journals, set up the computer and PSC, and capture away.
The images
They are AMAZING. I always wanted to have my students sight-read from the 1928 edition of Rudy Wiedoeft's Advanced Etudes & Studies for Saxophone but never dared because it is rare and out of print. My copy was a gift and is in tatters. You can see the page lying ready to be imaged, the JPEG (544KB) captured by the PSC, and the TIFF image (32KB). Note the terrible condition of the page and how the TIFF is significantly improved. Default settings were used on both images, except the PSC software's masking feature was used on the TIFF to digitally crop the image during scanning.
Click to view the JPEG of the page.
Click to view the TIFF of the page.
Speed
FAST! You can grab pages as fast as you can turn the page. The actual "scan" time is almost instantaneous. I timed scanning the spiral-bound notebook I take notes in during interviews. This involved placing the first page, centering it under the PSC using the preview window, clicking the onscreen "grab" button, and then picking the notebook up, rotating it for the companion page, etc. First page took 1 minute, 30 seconds to get right, then the rest of the pages took 9.5 seconds each including the time to pick up, rotate, turn pages, everything. I could never go this fast with a flatbed. Scanning a stack of letter-sized paper with the PSC goes even faster. I timed that at about 1 second/page. Just set the stack under the camera, scan, pull the top page off, repeat. The way the PSC lets you rapidly hand-place originals, scanning an entire book is now feasible. A sheet feed scanner is faster (some can do 100 pages/minute), but not at this price. Besides, you can't carry those with you and would never trust them with fragile documents and they don't do books.
What's not to like?
Unfortunately a lot. The whole out-of-the-box and installation experience is not for the faint of heart and frankly is not acceptable from a $500 item. The install CD is unlabeled and installation can best be described as "fully manual". The hinges on the unit appear to be cheap and too much care is needed whenever the PSC is folded. Please don't try folding this thing up in a hurry, it could break. The little box that stores the USB cable when folded is a complete pain and I discarded it. The base is not heavy enough and I had to add weight. You can see that in the photos.
The manual is so poorly translated it's funny. This wouldn't be such a big deal except you really need it to understand unfolding the camera, installing the driver, and using the software. Nothing about this unit is intuitive when you start. I've used a lot of software since 1981 and never seen anything that combines so many useful and powerful features behind such a confusing interface. From reading the manual and poking around the software, it appears that the PSC can also capture full motion video, but I gave up trying because I couldn't understand how. TWAIN support is coming, but as of this writing I've not been able to get the PSC to work with anything other than the bundled application.
Also, when you use a flat-bed you get two things that are missing from the PSC: a light-source and guides to keep the document square when scanning. This is not a complaint about the PSC, but an acknowledgment of the reality associated with this approach to scanning. Solution? Get creative. My cheap IKEA halogen desk lamp works fine and I made a guide out of a piece of mat board that was lying around. Make some crosshairs on the mat board, put the camera on the board, take some preview scans to get close and that will get you started. When you're out in the wild, find some good lighting.
The future seems brighter
Craig Justice at Justice Visions has been amazingly responsive and is well aware of all the problems. Hardware developers who are that approachable and can take straight feedback are rare. The new software is in beta and includes TWAIN. I think this product deserves a chance to succeed and will catch on once the issues are fixed (and they are all fixable) and the price comes down.
Recommendation
Did I put up with a lot? Absolutely. Was it worth it to me? You bet. All the minuses in the PSC were glaring the first day or two, but after that I had it installed and knew how to scan with it. Should this be the way things are? Heck no. The minuses are so large (and so is the price) that I cannot recommend the PSC to anyone who isn't a heavy-duty geek or knows one who can figure it out and will teach you. Once installed and you know how to run the software, it does an awesome job.
Next entry
Tips for using the PSC.
Detail on this review
I have this camera on loan from the distributor, Justice Visions. I requested the loan as part of my research into how schools could capture student work to help teachers be more efficient while building their professional knowledge. Craig Justice, president of Justice Visions, let me borrow the camera with one request: To provide him with no-holds-barred assessment of the entire package. This review was not part of my thinking at the time. When I found Hugh's blog and saw his awesome idea for never having to turn a page of music again, I knew how useful the camera could be and decided to write this review. I talked the idea over with Craig first, he thought it was a great idea and actually insisted the review be "warts and all".
If you need a new digital camera battery then keep in mind that you can buy batteries nowadays that might serve you well. Also, make sure to recycle your batteries rather than just throwing them away, just as you would with a
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