this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] ech@lemm.ee 42 points 2 years ago (18 children)

WHY do people think everything needs to be cropped to hell just to fit on their phone. The screen rotates. Just twist it around ya lazy bastards.

Anyhow, here's a link to the full size video that isn't pointlessly cut down by 75%: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QThaHpkFVzw

[–] AnActOfCreation@programming.dev 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

This video comes from the official Internet Archive TikTok page. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse lol!

https://www.tiktok.com/@weareinternetarchive/video/7329355972428696874

[–] ech@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Explains its existence at least.

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[–] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I’m with you but it’s not about being lazy, just like shit audio being on most videos these days this is yet another symptom of tiktok bullshit.

Videos with shit sounds get more traction and tiktok wants every video to be scrollable without havin to turn your phone and shit so the result is trash like this getting pumped out which ruins the actual video content

[–] the_third@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago

By now, I've just got a second screen in portrait orientation.

Okay, I got it for documents, but it works nicely for those vids.

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[–] Ohi@lemmy.world 32 points 2 years ago (3 children)

We so appreciate your efforts, but ya'll need more funding so you can start working smart and not hard. From the looks of things, I see no reason why page flips can't be automated there.

I just made a donation. Please use it to save this poor woman from the tedious task you've shown us today.

[–] IndefiniteBen@leminal.space 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think this is one of those things that seems like it should be easy to automate, but actually has lots of hidden complexity.

They probably don't use this to scan commonly available books, because for those you can just cut the spine off the book and scan the pages in a regular scanner.

This is likely used for books that need to be preserved and can't be damaged during the scanning process.

How do you make a machine that will always turn exactly one page and never tear a page, while adapting for different page sizes and thicknesses, and avoiding the static charge that can make pages stick together? All for less money than it costs to pay people to operate this machine.

[–] droans@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Iirc they did experience with automation before and did get it to copy well...

But like you said, it would damage books pretty frequently. That's not what you'd want for old and fragile materials which are rather irreplaceable.

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[–] activ8r@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We should start doing charity style TV ads.

"You, too, can help us build page turners and save the lives of dozens of archivists. Just £2 a month will allow Margaret to finally rest."

[–] theRealBassist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Man I got some friends who are archivists, and they'd love that shit lol.

They love their field, but it's a lot of mind-numbing work

[–] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I'd just use a bandsaw to cut off the spine and stick it in a document feeder.

[–] Gloomy@mander.xyz 38 points 2 years ago

Leave that poor woman alone you psycho!

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 year ago

If the book is not that easily available (old, rare), it's much better to keep it intact.

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[–] Bravebellows@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There should be a law that should any book go out of print, to be digitized and made available online. Publishers shouldn't dictate which books are allowed to be consumed once they allow it out of print when digital versions cost next to nothing to make available for a nominal price.

That goes for authors owning the copyright, as well.

[–] echindod@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

And limited to 25 years. This 100 years is bull shit.

[–] _sideffect@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Kids in university watching this: 😯

[–] guyrocket@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago

Thank you, Internet Archive.

[–] Grumpydaddy@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Looks like two pages at a time to me.

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[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

Please remember to make a donation to the Internet Archive for the invaluable work they do!

[–] Sensitivezombie@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago

Ah, this takes me back to my college times when I scanned textbooks one page at a time at the library because I couldn't afford to buy one and renting a book was scarce

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Firefox: Video can't be played because the file is corrupt.

Chrome: Plays audio only.

Why are we hosting things on such shonky shit?

[–] AnActOfCreation@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What OS are you on? The video plays fine for me in Firefox on both Windows and Android.

Also I think the codec is more likely to blame than the hosting provider.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Windows 10.

When I download it I can play it in VLC, and according to MediaInfo HEVC encoding.

Is HEVC support not included by default? Chrome should support it, and Firefox shouldn't support it at all according to the compatibility charts.

Maybe there's some site bullshittery going on and the site is giving out different versions of the file to different people based on region or something. The file it gives me is 2,661,216 bytes. Is that what you get?

Edit: Works in Edge, although feel like I now have to go wash my hands after firing that up.

[–] AnActOfCreation@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ok I take it back. It plays in Firefox on Android, but not on Windows. Also on Android, it didn't play at first, I had to refresh. I don't know what's going on lol.

I kinda doubt catbox.moe is doing any kind of smart distribution. It's a pretty simple file hosting site.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

Found it. My Chrome has "Hardware-accelerated video decode" disabled. Apparently there's no software fall back there, so it just claims no knowledge of them.

Kind of sucks that Firefox can't play them, something to do with licensing.

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[–] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Shockingly, it plays for me (both a/v) on iOS (in the voyager app)

There is no audio outside of the sound of pages turning and the machine beeping in between so you aren’t missing much in this case

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[–] athaki@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Reminds me of the hours I've spent scanning in articles from print journals for interlibrary loan.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 3 points 2 years ago

Automatic page turners are unreliable?

[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)
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[–] Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Wow that seems painfully slow/tedious. Why isn't it automatized? I think I saw a robot do like 20 pages a second on a yt some years ago.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you remember the results of those speed scans? Crooked pages, parts of the document cut off, blurry scans, etc.

It was a lazy method that resulted in a lot of junk data.

[–] Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think this is what I saw. Not quite 20 pages/s hahah and also a different method.

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Google have digitised a lot of books using some more advanced tech, though they started out with something a little like this.

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What happened to that in the end? I heard they wanted to digitize the worlds books and then it just petered out at some point and heard nothing about it. Did they continue or was it spun to Internet Archive to do?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago

My understanding is the project led into Google Books. Google fought many legal cases and ultimately won but their enthusiasm to scan more books seems to have waned. Google basically convinced judges that by only letting people see a few pages, it fell under fair use, but then that meant you didn't get a giant library because you couldn't read the whole book.

There's an article about it here: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-08-10-what-happened-to-google-s-effort-to-scan-millions-of-university-library-books

Also see https://www.hathitrust.org/about/ which is mentioned in the article.

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