Capturing and digitizing vinyl covers with IPEVO VZ-R document camera

Are you a vinyl collector looking for ways to digitize your vinyl covers so that you can keep a digital catalog of them, or simply, share their “vintageness” with other collectors? A conventional scanner would be the obvious chance if not for the fact that very few of them have large enough scanner bed to fit a 12” album cover. A DSLR camera or smartphone might be the next choice, however it would require some additional equipment like a tripod or a camera stand. And you’ll need a space big enough to accommodate these setups. Here’s where you’ll find IPEVO VZ-R HDMI/USB Dual Mode Document Camera as a surprisingly effective alternative.

VZ-R, with its small footprint, tall build, multi-jointed stand, swiveling camera head, and high resolution (8MP camera), is the ideal tool for capturing vinyl covers. So let’s take a look at how this little tool makes capturing and digitizing vinyl covers a breeze.

What you need:

1. A small desk space.
2. VZ-R.
3. Lamp (to provide adequate lighting).
4. Laptop (for connecting to VZ-R and storing your images).
5. Free IPEVO Visualizer software (features “Scan Document” function for easy scanning).
6. Vinyl records (of course you’ll need them).

And that’s all!

Setting up and capturing:

1. Download Visualizer software onto your laptop. You can download it from https://www.ipevo.com/software/download/visualizer.
2. Connect VZ-R to your laptop via the included USB cable.
3. Place a vinyl cover under VZ-R.
4. Grab a lamp and place it by the side of the vinyl cover.
5. Turn VZ-R on. Launch Visualizer. The image of the vinyl cover should appear on your laptop screen.
6. Adjust the position, height and angle of VZ-R to ensure you have the whole vinyl cover in view. VZ-R’s multi-jointed stand and swiveling head make these adjustments easy.
7. Switch on the lamp. Look at the image on your screen. Adjust the position of the lamp so that you get an even lighting on the image.
8. Adjust parameters such as resolution, focus, brightness, exposure or more in Visualizer to fine-tune the image.
9. Choose “Scan Document” in Visualizer. Set the preferred aspect ratio and file format for capturing the vinyl cover.

And voila! You’re ready to digitize your vinyl covers.

Here’s a video for your reference:

So grab an IPEVO VZ-R document camera, try it out, and let us know how it works for you.