BERTL Contex SD4400 Series, Manual

Page 1: ...rtion of this document This document may only be viewed electronically through the www BERTL com Web site and may not be stored in electronic or hard copy format Any reproduction of trademarks is strictly prohibited BERTL accepts no responsibility for any inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document www bertl com 5 10 ips monochrome 0 3 ips color Wide Format Scanner Contex SD4400 Series ...

Page 2: ...00 www bertl com Table of Contents Introduction 4 Contex History 4 Contex SD4400 Series 4 Contex Family of Scanners 5 Contex Upgrade Policy 5 What BERTL Tested 5 Setup Installation 6 Getting Setup 6 Scanner Calibration 7 Features Benefits 8 WIDEsystemNET 9 Sharing A Scanner 10 Nextimage 11 Nextimage Scanning 11 Nextimage Viewing 14 Maintenance 16 Consumables 16 Scan Quality 18 Scanner Accuracy 18 ...

Page 3: ...nance adding paper toner misfeeds cleaning and ease of using the documentation help control panel print drivers and client utilities analysis when compared to a sliding scale benchmark on the ease of use of other devices Media Handling Throughput specifications and evaluations based on a sliding scale benchmark when compared with the handling of special media e g oversize thick or coated stock fou...

Page 4: ... 1990 Contex introduced its first wide format color scanners in 1996 and its scanner line now encompasses models with 18 25 36 42 and 54 all in one wide scanning capability in both color and black and white In 2008 Contex released its first scanner based on the CIS technology offering both of the competing CCD and CIS scanning technologies to the market CONTEX SD4400 Series BERTL tested the SD4400...

Page 5: ...o aggressively price position to various segments Contex spun the SD4410 SD4430 and SD4450 models from the SD4490 model These scanners are identical in hardware except for the color scanner performance The Contex SD4400 series consists of four different 1 200 dpi optical scanners with no upgrade path and with different color performance but aggressive pricing Contex offers the new Nextimage scanni...

Page 6: ...canning software and the scanner maintenance calibration tool During installation of these utilities you can choose from among nine supported languages including English Spanish German French Dutch Italian Japanese Korean and simplified Chinese The computer needs to be rebooted after the installation of all software components Once the device is turned on the Microsoft Windows operating system aut...

Page 7: ... scanning table Any dust or dirt on these surfaces may affect the calibration results and the resulting image quality Also check that the calibration sheet is free of dust or dirt The Scanner Calibration wizard is a fully automated tool for calibrating the SD series of scanners The scanner calibration process is handled by a wizard that guides you through the different steps You only need to load ...

Page 8: ...es or omissions contained in this document Page 8 August 2008 Contex SD4400 www bertl com WHAT WE LIKED The calibration procedure is the most comprehensive and automated in the wide format scanner industry The calibration procedure is well documented and easy to perform Typical calibration time is 20 minutes A scanner operator does not need to understand the various calibration steps and as such c...

Page 9: ...t tracks how many inches have been scanned how many inches of roller movement have occurred and the like Set up of which application should be launched when the scanner operator touches the one touch button on the control panel The sharing of a scanner between users on the LAN Users can share the scanner with other users in the same way that a local attached printer can be shared with other comput...

Page 10: ...canner in a LAN environment The scanner is connected to the computer and the Scan Server via a USB 2 0 connection If the scanner operator wishes to share the scanner on the network they can set it up so that other users can use it or they can enable scanning to a designated scan folder on to another computer workstation In the former case users utilize the scanner similar to how they utilize a sha...

Page 11: ...ing Canceling or Printing As with all current software the trend is to avoid pop up dialog boxes for common settings and instead have collapsible and expanding menu choices as seen in the panel settings to the right to reduce screen clutter and allow the users to view the preferred settings Although we only tested the Nextimage scanning software Contex does offer a copy option for scan to print fu...

Page 12: ...u to avoid clutter in your monitor and only see the settings that match your need The Scan Settings box fully expanded The input size is the default set to auto sizing but the dropdown menu lists all standard paper sizes If you want custom sizes you can input the length and width in the expandable mode The scanning resolution can be set between 50 dpi and 9600 dpi for the SD4400 series of scanners...

Page 13: ... drawings to the same size Output File selects the destination for your scan and the file format The number of possible file formats has been limited considerably and now Nextimage only offers the most common standards for file formats JPEG PDF BMP TIFF For black and white scanning there are also CALS and for color there is also the newer JPEG 2000 file format Nothing more nothing less We like the...

Page 14: ...nput File and an extra Print setting has been added The Print setting allows you to print out to any printer attached to your computer or on the network It prints using the Windows driver For accurate color printing that is not enough You would need the Nextimage SCAN COPY option for that need The Input File box shows the properties of the viewing file and allows you to set cropping Image Adjustme...

Page 15: ...y inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document Page 15 August 2008 Contex SD4400 www bertl com The support of the newer JPEG 2000 standard is good Batch printing is possible with auto naming field inserts The Options Copy feature is integrated into the same application interface The image adjustment occurs in real time without the need to re scan the image WHAT WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE We woul...

Page 16: ...he SD4400 series uses LED lights that have a lifetime of approximately 50 000 hours so they are not really of concern The scanner glass is also easy for the user to replace With the SD4400 series you can replace the image sensors in a few simple operations The SD4400 series has a built in diagnostic indicator on the back If all four lights are green everything is working smoothly If one of the lig...

Page 17: ...zontal 0 15 Vertical 0 03 The vertical result is excellent and is well below the vendor s claimed accuracy of 0 1 The horizontal of 0 15 is clearly below the 0 1 specification but never the less fully acceptable The SD4400 series scanner supports adjustment of vertical precision You do that by typing in a known distance and then adjusting it for precision TEXT SHARPNESS Text sharpness is another t...

Page 18: ...g test checks how well the RGB channel is aligned We do this by scanning the Grayscale Applied image test chart QA 1 in color at the optical resolution to see if there are any visible color fringing problems As shown there is no visible color fringing SD4400 Series Color Fringing Test Result None COLOR ACCURACY For our Color Accuracy test we used the well known ANSI IT8 test chart that is used to ...

Page 19: ...mm test as a way to measure spatial resolution With the lp mm measure all quality factors such as lenses optical system scaling and image processing are taken into account making the use of the lp mm test a better way to measure scanning quality In connection with lp mm we also like to measure how well a scanner maintains rapid change in the image and if it maintains the sharpness instead of just ...

Page 20: ...st chart Correct panchromatic interpretation of color image This test is designed to check if the scanner can scan panchromatic correctly If a scanner has a dedicated panchromatic line sensor or the grayscale response is formed by combining the red blue and green channels the test reveals a correct response If on the other hand the scanner uses the green color channel to get the grayscale response...

Page 21: ...hnology that cleans up engineering blueprints and other deteriorated drawings We test the scanner s ability to clean up the drawings both in terms of the result and also how easy it is to find the best settings for this process We try to avoid over cleaning so crucial information is not lost With adaptive thresholding scoring is based on a subjective scale from Best The best available in the indus...

Page 22: ...iation at as much as 25 error for less than 300 dpi scans at higher resolution the relative errors converge to less than 5 For each scan timed BERTL analysts also measured the reaction time from the time we pressed the scan button to the time the scanner actually started scanning and then we measured the end time at the completion of the scan The reaction time is in the range of less than a second...

Page 23: ... scanning performance for the SD4410 SD4450 and SD4490 scanner Gratyone Performance SD4430 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 0 10 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 dpi Ips Observed Claimed Adjusted Grayscale scanning performance for SD4430 For graytone scanning the scanners delivered the promised speed and there is no USB 2 0 bottleneck in the systems We contribute this to the Contex USB 2 0 xDTR tech...

Page 24: ... the performance of the SD4450 in the scanning range of 100 500 dpi With a price differences between the SD4450 and SD4490 of 2 000 and between the SD4430 and SD4450 of 1 500 it s clear that you get very little extra in terms of color performance with a SD4450 versus the SD4430 The excellent result is due among other things to the good performance of the attached computer which did have a 3 25 GB ...

Page 25: ...ntage of the increasing processing power of a computer Contex has switched a lot of processing from the scanner to the computer This has also reduced the complexity in the scanner and with a 26 second startup time from cold it is truly an instant on scanner Due to its high optical resolution this scanner is a perfect fit with the GIS market but also CAD AEC and the reprographics industry are clear...

Page 26: ...c 2 0 2 5 Adaptive Quality 5 0 5 Sub Total 25 0 27 5 Performance Score Black White Performance Claimed 4 0 5 Graytone performance Claimed 4 0 5 Color Performance Claimed 5 0 5 Black White Performance Observed 2 6 0 5 Graytone performance Observed 2 65 0 5 Color Performance Observed 4 3 0 5 Sub Total 22 55 0 30 Total Score 69 05 0 85 Price Factor adjusted 13 25 Value Price index 521 SD4450 Score Ra...

Page 27: ...anchromatic 2 0 2 5 Adaptive Quality 5 0 5 Sub Total 25 0 27 5 Performance Score Black White Performance Claim 1 5 0 5 Graytone performance Claimed 1 5 0 5 Color Performance Claimed 3 0 5 Black White Performance Obs 1 05 0 5 Graytone performance Observed 1 05 0 5 Color Performance Observed 2 8 0 5 Sub Total 10 9 0 30 Total Score 57 4 0 85 Price Factor adjusted 9 75 Value Price index 589 SD4410 Sco...

Page 28: ... for fast problem resolution Nextimage is the best scanning software we have seen Simple logical and easy to use yet it offers all the powerful features that you need in the scanning or viewing process Nextimage scanning software is a professional scanning tool that gets the job done The multiple Detail view is a powerful feature The support of the newer JPEG 2000 standard is good The scanner enab...

Page 29: ...strategic guides look at digital imaging through the eyes of the business user The research examines not only the technical features but also vertical market applications and business benefits The impact on worker productivity is a primary concern BERTL is 100 percent independent It receives no funding from manufacturers and all product evaluations and reports are published at BERTL s own expense ...