Using OCR for video displays and screens

By Ann, 3 January, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I have an iPhone 6 S. This may be a crazy question, but has anyone used any kind of OCR or camera app to read a television screen or other displays? If so, which app works best?

thanks,
~Ann

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Comments

By Kathy Blackburn on Sunday, January 3, 2016 - 19:52

When my Windows 7 laptop fails to boot properly, I have had good luck using the Video camera feature of Google Goggles. KNFB Reader works, too. I did once read the television screen with Google Goggles, but I could not hold the phone and the remote at the same time, so access to the menu didn't really help much.

By TJT 2001 on Sunday, January 3, 2016 - 23:16

In a demonstration, a presenter showed how he could use KNFB Reader to read a computer screen from several metres away with accuracy. A lot of people on this website and others have said that KNFB Reader is worth the purchase.

By Ann on Sunday, January 3, 2016 - 23:20

Would anyone happen to have a link for that above mentioned demonstration?

I have purchase KNFB reader for my IOS devices, and it is wonderful. Maybe I'll try it on screens.

By OldBear on Monday, January 4, 2016 - 01:05

There's been a few times when I've grabbed my phone and used KNFB Reader to see what's on the screen of a computer that's lost speech output or boots up muted. It helps to turn off the flash, and it usually does a good job. It won't help you select something from a complex menu on the computer, like the bios during boot, of course. LOL
Getting high quality OCR on a phone has made a huge difference in my life, by the way. Hope it works out for you.

Now there is an app I would haply pay for, even if I had to save a year for it. One that could OCR a video display/TV screen and tell you what was selected in the menus would be something a lot of us would relish.