Year: 2010

The easy way to digitalise old photos

…is to let someone else do it. But I thought I would have a go myself first.

Having gotten control over our digital photo collection I thought it would be great to be able to include even old photos (35mm film) in slide shows and what not. For some reason I thought this would be a piece of cake. After all, digital photography has been around for about 20 years so any computer aficionado should be able to convert their photo collection with a suitably priced scanner.

This turns out to be far from the truth. There is a huge variation in the type, quality and price of scanners available. Furthermore, it is a limited market with a limited product range given the fact that nobody uses film cameras any more.

Since choosing a suitable scanner can be difficult, a professional scanner service started to seem like a worthwhile option to pursue. Such a service is fast and produces good quality digital images, but with 2,000 frames to digitalise it would cost in the region of €700 to do so. One option could be to sort through negatives to find the best photos but this is time-consuming and a premium might be charged for the handling of individual negatives. In short, I needed to decide what the goal of my digitalisation project was.

Setting a goal

So my choices were: a) a professional service, which is the most efficient but costly solution to choose but would probably produce the best digital images or b) buy a good digital scanner and convert all of the photos on my own time or c) buy a cheap scanner for making quick low-quality images for one-off use such as e-mailing. Whether I used a professional service or not I would still have to do any post-processing myself such as rotating the images. Either way, the better quality I wanted the more expensive it was going to be.

So my goal was still to convert our entire 35mm film collection into digital images of a quality similar to our 4 Mpx camera. A further consideration was whether or not to aim for the highest possible quality so that I no longer need to rely on having access to the negatives, but that would cost way too much and the negatives should survive until a cheaper technology appears. However, I still could not make a decision without some idea of what I would get for my money. Time to do some research.

Research

One site I found that does a great introduction to film scanning is Filmscanner which compares professional services vs. DIY. It also looks at purchasing criteria when buying a scanner: quality, speed, noise, space, etc., as well as reviews of some of the best scanners available.

WikiAnswers provides some useful insights into film scanning with the question:
How many megapixels would it take to equal a 35mm film maximum quality?

So what does a professional service cost?. There have been many film format types in use but I am only interested in comparing prices for a basic conversion service for 35mm film. (For more information on other types of media have a look at the list of conversion services available at ScanDig.) It turns out that the pricing is very similar across the board although the final result may vary.

Professional services also offer even higher resolutions and sometimes even various post-processing services such as dust correction and Photoshop retouching for a price.

The other option is to buy a scanner, however the price can vary enormously – from under €100 up to €15,000 for professionals. The main factors in making a decision are price, quality and speed, and the three most important factors that influence the image quality of a scanner are resolution, colour depth and range of density. (See the FilmScanner primer for information on what these values mean.) For cheaper scanners these values may well not be provided by the manufacturer at all which is a bad sign. Disk space is not a problem these days and is a negligible cost consideration.

Here in Sweden you can use Prisjakt to find film scanners and compare these three parameters for different scanners which is an excellent way to shop around. Other product comparison sites probably have a similar function. So if I am going to spend my time scanning all of these negatives then it is worth investing in some decent equipment and so the choice so far is between:

But for every €100 spent on a scanner I could get approx. 300 frames scanned by a professional scanner service. On the other hand, once I am finished digitizing our 35mm film I could give it to my parents and others interested in doing the same thing.

What to do

Perhaps the best way to get started is just to select a small batch of film, say 24 photos, and get them converted by a professional service just to see what the resulting images will look like. It shouldn’t cost more that €10 to €20 (including postage insurance) and then I will have something concrete to test with such as creating slide shows or getting reprints made. For a bit more money, I could also have the conversion done in two different resolutions for comparison. This should help me decide what to invest my money (and time) in whether or not to pay someone else.

If all goes well, I’ll be sure to send a copy of our new digital photo collection it to the parents for safe-keeping. Wish me luck.

A case of computer archaeology

My father-in-law had researched his family tree some 15 years ago using a software program to help manage the data. The program was called Reunion 4.0 and ran on an Apple Macintosh PowerBook 165c. Once the project was finished, the program was no longer used and the computer was eventually mothballed.

I first heard about this project a couple of years ago and that my father-in-law was interested in adding new information to the family tree. I realised immediately that there was no time to waste in retrieving the data from the old computer. The data had never been backed up and no one knew if the computer still worked nor if the data could still be transferred from it!

Extract

Fortunately, none of this turned out to be a problem. The sturdy little PowerBook ground into life and the Reunion program started. I took an old floppy disk and formatted it in the floppy disk drive. Then there was a choice of saving a copy of the genealogical data in native format or exporting it to the GEDCOM format. I did both since I had no idea if I could read the native file (most likely binary) format or if the text-based GEDCOM file contained all of the same information.

Getting it onto the PC took a while. I had no floppy disk drive. Off to the neighbours who had one and who then emailed back the files back to me. There were over one thousand people named in the family tree! Step one complete. Or so I thought. It would take another two attempts before I got the version of the data file with the most number of individuals in it transferred to the new computer.

Transform

Next, find a program to open the native Reunion file with. Leister who make Reunion no longer distributed the program for PC. However, they did offer a conversion service free-of-charge for which I am very grateful. I sent off the native files and a few hours later got a GEDCOM 5.5 file back with all of the information in it. Having the data in the GEDCOM format meant that I could in principle import the data into any other genealogy program. The first PC program I looked at was GenealogyJ which has lots of features but did not import all of the information in the GEDCOM file. In fact it silently ignored a lot of fields which made it totally unreliable for my purposes.

The file from Leister naturally enough used MAC OS character encoding, so before importing it into a PC program I need to convert it to DOS. UltraEdit makes this easy. The standard character encoding for GEDCOM files is ANSEL although most programs will handle DOS and/or UTF-8.

Load

Next I found MinSläkt which did a very thorough job of importing the data and warned of all problems that occured during the import. There were lots of problems. Time to look at the GEDCOM standard. It seems that the GEDCOM file from Leister contained many deviations from the standard all of which I had to correct by hand. To this end UltraEdit and UltraCompare were invaluable tools for identifying and solving these issues. These were:

  • Removed all _UID fields
  • Fixed GEDCOM header: missing, superfluous or incomplete information
  • Fixed incorrect date formats
  • Moved addresses from FAM to INDI.
  • Replaced @C90@ with NOTE
  • Replaced all NSFX with TITL
  • Moved RELI to NOTE
  • Converted all ADDR in INDI to RESI
  • Fixed HEADER error
  • Converted SOUR to NOTES. This was a compromise since MinSläkt does not support citations that are not connected to events. On the other hand no sources had been named so no information was lost.

After that, the import ran without any errors or warnings and no information loss had occurred as far as I could tell. At each stage of the conversion I saved a copy of the file so that I could go back one steps or more if needed.

Now I had a program that I could use to manipulate the ancestry data with. But before continuing I tried testing the GEDCOM file for any errors that MinSläkt might have missed. A free GEDCOM validator found only one minor error in the updated GEDCOM file and the warnings could be safely ignored. For comparison I ran just the default checks on the GEDCOM file from Leister: 101 errors found!

Test

Now I could start working with the tool. I tested different views, editing fields and adding individuals and families according to the new information that was available. I had never used genealogy software before but I quickly understood that maintaining references to the sources for information entered into the program was essential for resolving conflicts when they arise between different sources. Unfortunately MinSläkt only supports one citation per source per event, even though the GEDCOM standard allows multiple citations from multiple sources to be associated with any piece of information – not just events. A reply to an inquiry to the developers of the software did not bode well for any improvement to this functionality.

Surfing the net again I eventually found Family Tree Builder (FTB) which turned out to be a much more advanced program (and free!) and with a much more elegant interface. The program has online research functions and advanced photo handling capabilities as well as being easy to use. Before the import could succeed, a few minor corrections were needed, in line with the GEDCOM standard:

  • Changed PLAC to ADDR+ADDR1
  • Converted “NOTE Religion:” back to RELI

Finally, it felt like I was on the right track. The tool even had Swedish language support which was appreciated. After some more testing I was satisfied that this tool was reliable and user-friendly.

Final touches

Time to inspect the family tree. The following housekeeping tasks were identified:

  1. Fix typos
  2. Fix duplicates
  3. Run the control function to check for inconsistencies in the archive. Also identify unconnected individuals.
  4. Tidy up individuals
  5. Check for deceased individuals
  6. Add descendants

These tasks I left for another day. After that I backed up all of the migration files to USB memory as well as the current copy of the data from FTB. Now the family tree could once again be extended.

At the touch of a button

Not happy with the off-the-shelf media centre solutions on offer I built a HTPC based on Windows Media Center (WMC) that was small enough and quiet enough to blend into my living room. In other words, I couldn’t hear it or see it. This allowed me to replace our ageing stereo, DVD player and video player and three remote controls. That was about two years ago and I am still pleased with the result.

But as with all things technological, they become obsolete or need upgrading in order to keep them working. There were intermittent problems with playing DVDs and CDs that didn’t go away when I replaced the DVD player in the HTPC. Another issue was that the cable TV provider switched from analogue to digital TV which meant not only that I could no longer record TV using the analogue TV card in the HTPC, but now I had a another (decoder) box and another remote control to contend with.

The first upgrade was to replace our faithful 28″ Philips CRT TV with a new 32″ Samsung LED model that is very pleasing to the eye and fits a lot better in our living room where real estate is at a premium in our apartment. Bigger picture, sharper image but also built-in support for a CA module (eliminating the need for the separate decoder) as well as a HDMI socket for optimal AV connectivity with the HTPC.

So far so good. The next step was to upgrade the HTPC with Windows 7 Home Edition (OEM 1,145 SEK) which included a new version of WMC. This seems to have solved the DVD/CD playback problems. It also allows file sharing with the HP laptop that is also running Windows 7 using the new Homegroup feature.

Of course the real purpose of having a HTPC is to be able to access all of one’s media at the touch of a button: photos, music, videos, films, etc. At this point I had sufficient hardware to make a decent go of it: Digital TV, laptop and HTPC. One of the benefits of the HTPC is being able to add new features as the become available, so expectations were high.

Viewing one’s prized digital photos on a large screen is a pleasure. We manage our photos on the laptop using Picasa and also use Picasa Web to post them to the Internet. With file sharing the pictures could also be viewed using WMC. However, this required that the laptop is powered on and that the HTPC has connectivity to the distant wireless network, neither of which is always true. So rather than using file sharing, the solution was to synchronise the photos to the HTPC once a day. This eliminates any connectivity problems when viewing the photos and as a bonus, functions as a backup location. Without too much research I paid $30 for Beyond Sync which has a scheduler and real-time sync options.

There is also a whole library of MP3 music files on the laptop that should be able to be played back on the HTPC. This was solved the same way as for the photos using synchronisation. However, buying CDs and ripping them to disk is no longer the only way to stream your music. Now there are services like Spotify which can stream music for free to your HTPC. Enter Songler which is a free plug-in for WMC that allows one to control Spotify from your Windows remote control. Songler also has support for LastFM and YouTube.

And lastly, videos and films. I have a few video files on the laptop that can also be synced to the HTPC, but all of my films and TV series are on DVD. Two reasons for wanting to transfer DVDs to the HTPC: DVDs for the kids are prone to damage due to excessive handling and TV series one watches one episode at a time which results in a lot of DVD changes. WMC does not come with any DVD ripping function but there is an excellent program with plugin called MyMovies which costs $50 for disk copy functionality or $100 for full functionality. DVDs are usually copy protected so AnyDVD is a must for $64 (lifetime license).

As with music you can now stream video to your HTPC. YouTube is one such service and there is the MacroTube plug-in. Here in Sweden, the TV stations also provide a streaming service called “Play” for recently shown programs. This is also accessible from WMC via the Play-kanaler plug-in.

The only feature missing is recording TV programs, but I watch so little live TV nowadays that TV Play suffices. And following a TV series at the same time every week is just not possible. There are digital TV PCI cards available but then one also needs to buy a CA-module and a second subscription which isn’t worth it for me.

So now all of my photos, music, videos and films as well as music and video streamed from the Internet are available at the touch of one, or well, just a few buttons. Now only time will tell if all of this time and effort and money will result in a unified media experience.

Resuscitating old hardware with a Xubuntu transplant

Was at the in-laws over the Easter weekend and as usual I can’t sit still for very long. I usually do a round of maintenance on their computer but this time there was the old laptop which was still set up and used from time to time. This Amilo M series laptop was about 8 years old and hadn’t been reinstalled since it was delivered with Windows XP on it. It took me 20 minutes to boot it up before I could actually start an application. Time for an overhaul – the in-laws said fire away. This is what I had to work with:

  • 1GHz Celeron processor
  • 256MB memory 
  • ProSavageDDR K4M266 graphics card
  • 8, 16 or 32MB configurable shared graphics memory
  • 20GB hard-disk
  • CD-ROM

A D-Link DI-524 Wireless USB dongle provided network connectivity. Also, the monitor was broken and had been removed. Instead, an LG 1510S 15″ monitor was attached via the VGA port which was just fine.

A flavour of Linux was the obvious choice of OS for this type of old machine and I chose Ubuntu. Downloaded and burned an image and stuck it into the CD-ROM. Configured the BIOS to boot first from the CD-ROM and presto up comes the Ubuntu start menu. There is an option to try Ubuntu without installing which I did.

This is where I encounter the first and most serious problem with the installation: a hard lock when starting X-Windows. This threw me. I knew the machine was old but a hard lock and a black screen wasn’t much use when trying to analyse the problem.

I switched to the more lightweight Xubuntu to no avail. I even looked in the BIOS and discovered the shared memory setting and bumped up the value from 16MB to 32MB to see if it helped, which it didn’t. Eventually, a Google search led me to identify the problem as a bug in the video card: “S3 ProSavageDDR K4M266 hard locks on X init when DRI is enabled”.

I stuck with Xubuntu and got it installed and presto!, logged in for the first time. I hadn’t managed to get connected to the network via the USB dongle during the installation, but once in in the windows system it was just point and click and connection complete.

The second problem occurred after I allowed the Xubuntu Update Manager to install the latest updates. After a reboot, the machine started doing a lot of page-swapping and the entire windowing system moved like tar. Well, the machine was newly installed and didn’t have any load so the prime suspect was the windowing system itself. This time I reduced the shared memory to 8MB (the lowest setting). Bingo! the paging problem disappeared.

With the basic installation complete, the most common use of the computer will be for guests to

  • surf (Firefox)
  • make phone calls (Skype)
  • chat (Pidgin, Skype)
  • watch videos (Flash player)
  • play single-player online games (Flash player)
  • play music (Spotify)
  • write documents (OpenOffice)
  • printing (Windows Samba printer)

All this was a breeze to set up with the Xubuntu Software Sources and the Synaptic Package Manager tools. Spotify was only available as a Windows application but the Wine tool takes care of that completely transparently.

Each user can have their own account but since it is mainly for guests, I only created accounts for the system admins and a common “guest” account for everyone else.

And now it only takes one minute to boot this 8 year old computer that can do pretty much what most casual users want it to do.

Some gory details

When encountering problems with X like a black screen or hard lock, boot Xubuntu into a root shell. By default there is no /etc/X11/xorg.conf file when the system is first installed, but X can generate one that contains the settings it is actually using:

# X -configure

This is a big help. If the command runs successfully, then you also know that X is installed correctly.
The generated configuration file can be edited to adjust your settings.

# vi /root/xorg.conf.root

The changed settings can be passed to X during startup to test them:

# X -config /root/xorg.conf.root

If a black screen occurs then you can switch back to the shell by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. When you are satisfied with the new configuration move the file to its proper location:

# mv /root/xorg.conf.root /etc/X11/xorg.conf