[exa]

It's been a while since I have been interested in scanners and had a need for a new one. My bulky Umax S-6E seems to be working just fine; back then when I bought it, you were lucky if your scanner was 32bit. Just opened this MacZone mag and am looking at this scanner, "42bit for over 4 trillion possible colors". First of all, I had no idea they venture into the 42 bit area... secondly, what the hell supports 42 bit colors?

Lets see, 4 trillion colors is really 4398046511104 colors, or 2^42
Soo, my graphics card with 16 megs of ram handles 1280x1024@75hz@millions. Millions is 2^32 colors, so (2^42)/(2^32)=2^10=1024, so 42 bit gives you 1024 times more colors than 32 bit (which is millions). So, that means I will need 16 gigabytes of video ram to have trillions of colors?


Talk about overkill... stupid marketing things... not like we actually see 42 bit... what is it, 24 bits of alpha blendings and stuff? </rant> Soooo anyways.... I'm looking at the agfa scanners, seems good, macworld winner, however does anyone know how it can handle OCR? OCR will be a concern for me, as well as graphics, and whats a good program to do OCR, Textbridge (is that the name?)?... Budget is basically ~200$....

[Cipher13]

LOL
I think my scanner is 36-bit or something.
I don't have much experience with the Agfa's, but generally, only trust any magazine comparisons as far as you can throw the object they tested
I have a Microtek Scanmaker X6, and its awesome - does OCR pretty well with the included OmniPage LE... I've got the full vers around here somewhere which is really good.
I haven't installed it yet cause I don't do much OCR...
HTH

Cipher13

[Paul S]

It's my understanding that with similar quality scanners, it's the OCR software that makes the difference. OmniPage is the best by far. I hear TextBridge from Xerox is good also.

Agfa certainly makes good scanners. If the reviews also back that up, get one. If it doesn't come with OmniPage/OmniPage LE or any other OCR software, make sure to buy that also if you plan to use it. It's rare for a scanner to not come with anything for it. I'd try whatever comes with it before spending extra money.

To add to your rant, the human eye can't perceive trillions of colors. The human eye is pretty much at it's limit with 30-bit and definitely at the 36-bit level. I see no point to buying a 42-bit scanner for that fact alone. I would only do it if the other features of it were useful to me.