I bought version 3.1.2, and started using that with my iSight camera. It seemed to go pretty well for those books with ISBN barcodes (i.e. not books from the UK which don't). Then I checked for upgrades and got to the latest version 3.3.1.
The iSight scanner input has changed from brackets to a bar. That's fine. However, the new version keeps trying to recognise too early and keeps searching for ISBNs which consist mainly of question marks. It doesn't seem to wait until it is positioned neatly above a barcode, but 'recognises' when it's somewhere near a barcode, or when a certain time has expired wherever it is. What's the point of this? Even when it's all numbers, they are often wrong. It was right only about one time in five, and consequently was much slower, so I switched back to the old version. Surely it could be programmed not to search until it has a full number? Sometimes it has tried to search for a code which was entirely question marks, which could of course be any ISBN at all. Surely this is a programming error?
Many of my books are bought in Japan. They have a sticky label on the back with two barcodes - one is the ISBN. They are printed smaller than regular barcodes, and it takes time to get the iSight in place over the correct barcode. The early 3.1 can cope with this, 3.3 cannot.
iSight too quick
Scanning
Well, I scanned 300 books happily with 3.1.2 and it went smoothly. I used plenty of light as recommended, and only two or three times did it take the wrong number, and only about twice could it not read at all. So, I was very pleased with this. But I was having real problems with 3.3.1. By the way, I haven't tried any of the versions between these two.
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thebodster
- Bruji Friend
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:40 pm
- Location: UK
I just purchased and set about scanning my huge dvd collection. I seem to be having the same problem as MacNara. About 1 in 10 DVDs will think it has scanned properly as soon as the dvd is anywhere near the iSight camera. Often this results in all question marks being sent to the search.
Other than this annoyance I love the software. I have been looking for something like this for a VERY long time
Other than this annoyance I love the software. I have been looking for something like this for a VERY long time
iSight
Thanks for this fix.Conor wrote:Thank you both, for the bug report. I found the bug and it's fixed now. You can download the programs again for an immediate fix; otherwise it will be official with the next update.
As I said somewhere in the forums, because of this glitch, I went back to version 3.1. This worked really well, so if 3.3 now works better than 3.1, I'll be delighted. I was only planning to scan and catalog a particular group of books prior to storage, but it worked so smoothly that I will certainly use it for other projects, and may even get around to doing my DVDs which are growing in number.
I tried several shareware and freeware cataloguers prior to Bookpedia, and this seemed to be the best. I still think so after using it. Apart from usability, it is 'adult' in its features - meaning 'grown-up' without pointless eye candy and slick 'features' that seem neat, but that you in fact only use once or twice before the novelty wears off and the pointlessness sets in.
There are still a few features I'd like to see especially a 'find next' button even when the automatic search is successful, so I could try to find the correct cover - the same ISBN often has several editions, and the cover art and details are often still on Amazon, but the current system doesn't allow you to reject the first ISBN search result (at least from iSight) and go on to the next. It should be easy to do, as inputting the name of the book gives this feature.
Also, in another thread, I said that UK books seemed not to have ISBN barcodes, but I was wrong. It was true of a run of twenty or thirty older paperbacks I was doing at the time (the barcode referred to something else), but most UK books are fine. Sorry about that.
Happy New Year to all.
Problem With iSight
I had the same problem with my MacBook Pro. Thanks for the quick fix.