News & updates
[CLZ News] CLZ Books now reads ISBNs with OCR / Coming up for CLZ Comics: add by scanning the cover
Closing in on the end of a productive year! This is CLZ Alwin, with the CLZ News for November 2024.
Big updates all over the place. The huge v10.0 update for the CLZ Books mobile app is live now (read ISBNs with OCR!). An even bigger v10.0 for CLZ Comics Mobile is coming up very soon now (add comics by scanning the cover!).
On the CLZ Web front, a long running project is getting closer to release. All 5 CLZ Web editions are getting a completely make-over for their Add screens, with the biggest impact on the game and movie editions.
The CLZ News for November 2024:
- Now live:
- CLZ Books 10.0: Read ISBN numbers with OCR
- Coming up:
- Coming soon, CLZ Comics v10.0 : Add Comics by scanning the cover
- Coming soon: big updates for the Add screens of all CLZ Web editions
- CLZ Core updates:
- Core for Movies: “Check Covers” project, 86% cloud coverage!
- Core for Comics: New Comic Book Day summary, 2,107 new releases
CLZ Books 10.0: Read ISBN numbers with OCR
CLZ Books version 10 is here! And the main new feature is:
Adding books by reading the actual ISBN number (no barcode needed!)
Previously the scan screen could only scan ISBN barcodes, but we have now enhanced the scanning with OCR technology, so that it also “reads” ISBN numbers that are printed on the book.
Reading ISBN numbers with OCR will be super useful for:
- older books without barcodes, but with an ISBN printed on the cover or on the inside
- books where the barcode on the book is not an ISBN barcode but a UPC barcode. Those UPC barcodes usually have the ISBN number printed above the barcode, which will now be read instead
Here’s a demo video of the new Add by ISBN scan screen in action
But there’s more. What else is new in the Add Books screen:
- New scanning feedback shows where it “sees” a barcode or ISBN number
- Now quickly detects ISBN barcodes and ISBN number in entire scan screen
- Faster online ISBN lookups for most ISBNs
- New “Type ISBN” tab: enter ISBNs manually, use external barcode scanner
Go here for CLZ Books v10 screenshots
Sneak Preview: CLZ Comics v10.0 -> Add Comics by scanning the cover
As we announced on our social channels earlier, CLZ Comics v10.0 is coming soon. And now, we can finally reveal what the big v10 feature will be:
Adding Comics by scanning the cover!
In version 10, we are introducing a new way to find comics in our CLZ Core and then add them.
- No need to scan the barcode
- No need to type series title or issue number
- Just take a picture of the cover and bam!
The app will show the matching comics from our Core!
This new method of adding comics is ideal for:
- Comics from the pre-barcode era (before 1976)
- Direct Editions without barcode
- Modern comics without barcode
- Bagged and boarded comics that have the barcode on the back cover
But of course, the cover scanning works on any comic, including ones that do have a barcode on the front cover.
Sneak Preview screenshots / Demo video
Coming soon: big updates for the Add screens of all CLZ Web editions
Earlier this year, we updated the Add Movies screen for the CLZ Movies mobile app, with a much nicer user interface for adding movies by title, with big edition cover images, a format filter, etc… Then later, we did a similar update for CLZ Games, also with big edition covers and a region filter (US, EU, AU, etc..).
So a few months ago, we decided to bring these improvements to the Add screens for the CLZ Web web-based software too. But while we proceeded, the project grew into a bigger endeavour, in which we ended up enhancing the Add screens for all 5 CLZ Web flavors, not only the movie and game editions 🙂
CLZ web-developer Joe is now getting closer to a final releases and CLZ AJ has already started testing the new screens. So we hope to release it all within a few weeks.
CLZ Core updates:
Core for Movies: “Check Covers” project, 86% cloud coverage!
With the Game Covers project finished, we can fully focus on the DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD covers. At the moment, both our in-house content manager CLZ Kelvin AND enthusiast user Martin Ede are working full-time to check and correct cover images.
And their work is showing, the cloud coverage of checked covers jumped to 86% this week. Meaning that on average, our users should be getting guaranteed correct cover images for 86% of their scanned barcodes!
Core for Comics, New Comic Book Day summary: 2,107 new releases!
This month, our CLZ content team added 2,107 new comic books to our Core, on 4 NCBD wednesdays.
Check out this month’s NCBD posts on Club CLZ:
- NCBD week 45: 500 releases
- NCDB week 46: 583 releases
- NCDB week 47: 474 releases
- NCDB week 48: 550 releases
You can find all past NCBD posts on our Club CLZ forum here.