Microfilm reader.

[Scooby]

Not sure if this is the right section, or even the right Forum but I've had lots of really good advice from here before.

We are a Classic Tractor Club and we have copies of all the build cards on microfilm. My questions are : What sort of machine can read and print the cards from these films and could the card images also be sent to a pc ?

Ideally we would like to digitise them all so that we can search (there is quite a good revenue stream to be had for the Club) but I imagine that this wouldn't be possible.

Thanks for any help.

[AndrewGC]

The only things I could find via searching were some really old funky sites and a few big Canon machines - try Googling Microfilm to PC.

Obviously, you know your stuff better than me, but you do say 'copies' so you may need to be VERY careful with regards to copyright.

[Scooby]

Thank you for the reply. Firstly we do have permission to copy. And I am currently awaiting a quote for scanning the circa 45,000 images to a digital media. It just isn't viable to scan them ourselves but it may prove to be prohibitely expensive to have them scanned for us.

[AndrewGC]

If you do a standard search you may find something. Nothing on the standard sites like Maplin or eBay, but there are a few, particularly Canon machines that appear to do what you want.

Obviously getting them done will be more in line with paying for someone else's time rather than the actual equipment. There are a lot of negative scanners about (for 35mm and 110mm film) so there must be something that can do this.

One model is a Scan Pro 400 but I can only find them on US sites and in limited numbers for over $2500. Your best bet may be to see if someone has one they no longer need - a bit like the negative scanners and USB turntables, once you have done all your collection they tend to be a bit useless to you.

You may find someone has one they no longer want but obviously the trick is finding them.

[Scooby]

I am still waiting for the quote but I have been told that I can have them scanned with OCR (optical character recognition) which would be really helpful because looking for one record amongst 45000 would be a nightmare.

I have seen the type of machines that can do this but, as you say, once I've done the job the machine would be redundant. I may be on to a non-starter. It all depends on the quote.