Document Camera / Digital Visualiser

[Busybub]

Does anybody use one of these things? General comments on staff utility of such devices?

I have info on th RM Eye and AverVision 300 jobbies but nothing too detailed.

[Face-Man]

We have used AverVision 300 and I find that it is good easy to set and the four red led lights mean you can see the projected area. However teachers struggle with the manual focus and tend to use it as a glorified OHP. We find Elmo P30 Visualiser far better though it is twice as expensive but the auto focus and zoom make it an easier tool to use

[chrisa]

The best bet is to go for a Avervision 130. They have most of the features of the Avervision 300 and are £300 cheaper

[thom]

I had a really good demo from Genne Vision.
They do a fanatstic model (6100) which they offered to me for £899 with a free slate or carry bag.
They also do a smaller version (GenneVision Mini) for £499 but I didn't ask to see this.
The Science Dept. were drooling over it and said they would prefer these a lot more than an interactive whiteboard.
They will probably come and do a demo for you www.interactive-education.co.uk

[chrisa]

Don't spend that much on one!

We do the Avervision 130 for £250

[localzuk]

Can I ask what is so special about these visualisers? Wouldn't a bog standard camera on a tripod, pointing down, plugged into the projector do the trick?

[Trav]

We've got the Genee 6100, great little piece of equipment, got ours for £850 from www.interactive-education.co.uk tel: 0870 043 4024


Get a demo.
Hope that helps.

Trav

[thom]

@Trav - is there an echo in here?
@localzuk - the main benefit of the visualizer for me is that it is a dedicated resource. i.e. you plug it in to the projector and it works straight away with just the buttons you need on the front of it. You can plug them into a laptop etc to do more advanced stuff if you want. We tried having a camera/tripod setup but staff found it a hassle to set up so they wanted me to do it, then someone "borrowed" the camera for a media lesson and the science dept never saw it again!

[enjay]

Can I ask what is so special about these visualisers? Wouldn't a bog standard camera on a tripod, pointing down, plugged into the projector do the trick?

I was wondering that too! Plus, a camera on a stand/held in the hand can view the sides of 3D objects, which these visualisers don't seem able to do...

[ATOM]

A good visualiser lets you rotate the camera arouond the object - we have an ELMO(?model) with a 650k CCD and it works very well - £1500 3 years ago - teachers love them for books, art, science etc. tried a few gooseneck ones first with cmos but they were very poor compared, the macro work with the elmo is outstanding. We are now looking at samsung or elmo for an upgrade as the one we have doesn't have a dedicated usb feed to the pc for live video on the desktop which the newer ones do. Still £1000 but well worth it.

[Busybub]

Wasn't expecting such a positive response from my teachers!

Cheers for the info. Sounds like I will have to try and arrange a demo of a couple of them so that the peeps over here can evaluate them. Cost could become an issue, but I think we'd rather have a couple of decent ones than give everybody a piece of...

[Sylv3r]

I have looked at them and can see their worth in lessons such as Science. We will probably be looking at getting 1 or 2 at first then making them a bookable resource - are they comfortably able to fold away and carry about from classroom to classroom?

[thom]

The one that I saw folds down flat and you can use the camera arm as a handle.
I just got an e-mail from GeneVision people (http://www.interactive-education.co.uk). Theirs are on offer through June for £795 for the 6100 or £450 for the mini one. The sales rep I was talking to was Val on 0870 043 4024

[CheeseDog]

I'm currently trialing an avervision 110 seems to work fine when logged on as system admin. Have problems when using it as a student/teacher

get a message saying can't find application.ini. When loading Vision AP

Never had an issue like this before (RM CC3)

Haven't looked into it yet properly but I thought folks here might save me some time.

Ideas anyone?

Thanks

[CheeseDog]

Just tried Movie Maker and the camera refuses to start with that as well.

"Device is not responding"

Also trialing a Genee Vision and get the same problem in movie maker

Hmmm