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On one of my school sites we have been using a Genee Vision visualiser that whilst I can see the concept and potential benefits I have not been that impressed with. When offered to test a AVervision CP150 for a couple of weeks (purely a sales thing) I cant say that I was that excited, but as another site is looking for a visualiser it was a good opportunity to have a look.
I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised.
The unit itself is well designed and very portable, the swan neck of the camera unit becomes a handle once the camera is clipped back into the base. The visualiser probably weighs about 3kg and with a small base is is easy to set up on the teachers desks, laptop trolleys and smaller areas. My first test of the unit was on top of a desktop PC with the monitor pushed back a little, so very little thought and planning involved.
Setting it up is easy enough, a single VGA in single VGA out and a Video connector. With all classrooms having a projector there is really only one VGA cable to plug in and you cannot get it wrong… Simplicity. Plug in the power and away you go. One complaint about the Genee visulaiser was that it is quite confusing with a lot of connections, sure it has more input and output options but teachers want to set it up in as little time as possible, with as little fuss and for it just to work, something that the CP150 fulfils very well. If required a PC can be connected and the CP150 allows you to select between PC, Video and Camera sources to display on the screen with a single button.
The camera is a 3.2 megapixel unit with a 12 white LED light attached. The light swings from under the camera unit and is controlled with a little switch. The light is either on or off although the switch has 4 settings, it would have been nice to have each position on the switch light up more LED’s to allow for more variation in the using light. Documents under the camera appear clean and crisp and the digital zoom, controlled by a scroll wheel on either the handset or base unit, doesn’t degrade too much as the image gets larger (up to 16x zoom). Colours are good representations of the original and there is even an anti glare sheet provided to lay over highly reflective documents.
Using the USB connection images can be captured to a PC very easily. If you have no PC connection the onboard memory of the CP150 acts as a removable disk that you can access images once connected.
With a price of about £350 is is almost a third of the price of the Genee Vision competitor, with a better camera and resulting image, simple layout and easier to transport, set up and use I would wholly recommend this unit as I can see it being used in all sorts of classes and situations, more so than the heavier, less portable and more confusing competitor.
