Are SCSI Scanners worth it?

[Chan Tran]

I have equipment to support SCSI as well as legacy software and OS but I feel these scanner priced are too high. Considered the fact that most people wouldn't use them.

 

[wiltw]

I'm not drinking that 4800 ppi Cool-Aid. Most reviews of recent flatbed scanner say the optical resolution tops out much less than 4800ppi, closer to half of that in fact.

...this is analogous to saying a dSLR has 50MPixel sensor and you have a cheap lens mounted on the camera that cannot deliver that optical resolution of line-pairs ! A sensor can capture only what the lens can deliver. There is a very distinct difference between the pixel count resolution and the optical resolution from the neg/slide.

And the number of line-pairs resolved is about 1/2 the number of pixels in each axis...remember it takes THREE pixels to represent two lines separated by a space. See info about Nyquist Limit.

 

[reddesert]

Flatbed scanner ppi specs aren't directly comparable to dedicated film scanner ppi specs. Maybe the sensor would literally deliver 4800 ppi, but in practice the scan you get of a 35mm negative is not as high-res as that would imply. I don't think this has solely to do with autofocus. It might be that the imaging system is lower-res on the flatbed and the detector oversamples it, or that the "resolution" it delivers is highly interpolated. It's always been like this, everyone who compares flatbeds to slide/neg scanners for 35mm has this experience.

 

[alanrockwood]

I run scsi scanners on Windows 10 machines. There is information out there on installing drivers for certain models of scsi cards under Windows 10. Normally you can't do this, but as I recall it can be done if you temporarily disable certain tests or procedures that Windows 10 runs when you install a new drive then it is possible to get certain scsi cards running under windows 10.

The Canon fs4000us scanner has the option to run either with a usb1 interface (slow) or a scsi interface (still slow, but not as slow as usb1). It works fine under Windows 10 if you can get the device driver installed for the scsi card, and it's working for me.

 

[nbagno]

The only good scanner is a SCSI scanner (except for my Noritsu). I call 'em as I see 'em, and if I don't see 'em I make it up.

 

[wiltw]

https://imagesourceinc.com/scsi-vs-usb-2-0-in-production-scanners/

 

[grat]

SCSI was a great solution in 1990.

If you're transferring gigabytes of data in server disk arrays, there's still something to be said for it, although once you're past SAS, fibre is still probably the answer.

For a single device, it's overly complicated with a much higher overhead than is necessary.

And if I never have to screw with SCSI termination jumpers/blocks again for the rest of my life, it may restore some meaning to my life.

 

[destroya]

one thing I remember my dad telling me was never toss out an old computer, you never know when you might need it. so a few years ago when I found a craigslist posting for a hasselbad flextight scanner which apperared to be mispriced, I figured a missing 0 on the end of the price, so I emailed the seller. nope, the price was right. turns out nobody had a scsi computer or a firewire/scsi dongle to make it work and she was not giving up her computer (figured you could replace it easily with the extra $ you would get from selling a complete working package, but what do I know). so lucky me, an awesome scsi scanner. Dug out my old xp2 maching powered it up, found an old scsi pci card and was up and running in less than an hour.

john