I am experimenting OCR for cast credits entering.

It may look lengthy, but I think it was faster and less boring than copying by hand, and probably reduced the error ratio.    Besides, the procedure might be simplified/optimized, perhaps.
What do you think?

Be as it may, here is what I did:

1. Screen caps of standard cast credits from end credits, with PowerDVD. That produced a few BMP image files.

2. Change the resolution of the image files (as my OCR software needs at least 150 dpi), with PaintShop or other image editing software.

3. Import the BMPs into an OCR software (I use PaperPort).

4. Do the OCR thing!

5. Export the text to Word for some formatting, so that credits will be as follows:
ROLEtabFIRSTNAMEtabtabLASTNAME
or
ROLEtabFIRSTNAMEtabMIDDLENAMEtabLASTNAME
(by "tab" I mean the tabulator character).

6. Manually verify for any OCR errors. I found some "i"s mistaken for "l"s.
I guess the OCR thing works fine when the credits are white letters on a black screen, or something like that.

7. Run Goodguy's Credits Editor, click on "More", "Role First", then select the first row, "Role" column.

8. Copy and Paste (with Ctrl-V or Right Click Menu) credits from Word into Goodguy's Editor.

9. Tick (with a "v") Voice check boxes when needed.

10. Copy (with the special Copy button) from Goodguy's Editor and Paste into DVD Profiler (Edit Cast).

let us know how it works...

Quoting oleops:

Quote:
Mine seems to work better if I invert the colors, so it is black on white 
(but that could be only for my free of charge ORC that came with the scanner, or?)

I tried inverting to black on white, but it doesn't any better with my OCR (PaperPort).

I also tried another OCR software, though, and it couldn't convert to text unless the colors were inverted to black on white, so your tip might be useful for some users 

However, I think the quality of the OCR software is key.
For instance, results were not so good when I tried a freeware OCR ("Simple OCR").