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Video Magnification System for Seniors?

Posted by Cliff on from the reading-the-fine-print dept.

c4tp's friend asks: "Recently my Mother informed me that my grandmother's 80th birthday is approaching. She suffers from glaucoma and it is rather hard to read small text for her. The consensus with our family is to buy her a video magnification device, but the ones I found online were at the minimum of $500 (US), a bit steep for me (and my family). So what I am asking basically, is there a way to build/assemble the parts these retail devices use for a cheaper price?"

6 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Change the display font size? by cybermace5 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Uh...this has nothing to do with a computer. This is for taking video of something small, like the ingredients list on the side of a Coke can, and projecting it on a monitor so Grandma can make it out.

    To answer the question: Yes. You can find NTSC video camera modules in the electronic surplus catalogs, many of them for well under $100. Couple that with a TV screen and you're good. For book reading, build a little wood-and-metal stand, or hack a one of those swingarm lamps/magnifiers (take out the big lens, fix the camera in the center, leave the circular fluorescent light).

    Only thing you need to pay attention to is the actual camera lens. Ideal distance is going to be about 1ft to infinity.

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  2. THIS IS NOT ON A COMPUTER SCREEN by c4tp's+friend · · Score: 5, Informative

    What I meant was say you take a piece of paper, maybe the daily paper, and you put it under this device, the device blows up your paper, onto a television screen, so you can see the writing more clearly. I did not mean enlarging things on computer screens.

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    1. Re:THIS IS NOT ON A COMPUTER SCREEN by Gudlyf · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Ah...that's what I thought. Like I said below, have you thought of using a cheap overhead projector (like this one)? I've seen them on Ebay for under $50.

      My wife's grandmother had issues with her hearing, so we started to send her faxes instead of calling her. If her eyesight started to fail, we could put transparencies into her fax machine and set her up with a small overhead projector in a back room. When she had a hard time reading the fax, she'd just put it on the Dukane in the back room to read it off the wall, which was plenty big for her to read. This would even work with single-page documents, where she could feed them into the fax as a copier, which would put the text on the transparency. This of course wouldn't work so well for books and newspapers.

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  3. I don't think he wants it for an OS... by r_naked · · Score: 3, Informative

    If I read the question correctly ... I think he is looking for some kind of camera / monitor setup that can be used to project / magnify on the monitor.... If that is the case I doubt he is going to find one for less than $500.00.

    First you need a Camera.
    Then you need an Arm. (That is IF this is the type of arm I think it is)
    Finally you need a Monitor (which I could not find one that took composite inputs for cheap AND still have the resolution to display a high quality image). But you can guess that it is gonna be ~$300.00.

    So if you add all that up ... you get > $500.00.

    Just my >$500.00 worth (sorry, bad joke -1)

    --Brian

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  4. Cheap camera/tv setup by fuzzy1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.x10.com camera to tv
    typically $80 to $150 and spam sales
    frequently. Work fine as wireless
    so you can move around with it.

    I have used it to videotape meeting notes
    from the whiteboard.

    rcb

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  5. Try www.maxiaids.com by Datoyminaytah · · Score: 2, Informative

    What exactly are you looking for? Something to magnify printed text or something on a monitor? Try www.maxiaids.com

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