1. A character recognition method comprising the steps of: (1) acquiring an image from a solid state TV camera, said image comprising a two dimensional array of pixels, said pixels having grey scale values associated therewith; (2) locating a character within said image by calculating intensity gradients and determining when said intensity gradients exceed predetermined values; (3) determining the size of said character measured in pixels; (4) reducing the number of pixels associated with said character by a first determining the number of pixels per dot required to fit said character into a smaller dot matrix and then; (5) combining the pixels associated with each dot to form a matrix of dot data points having fewer dots than pixels; (6) generating a grey scale histogram for said dot data points; (7) using said histogram to determine a threshhold for the grey scale values associated with the dot data points; and (8) assigning binary values to said dot data points based on said threshhold to form a binary representation of said character.