[access-uk] Re: Playing Audio Books
- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:37:04 +0100
I would suggest in answer to this question a good place to start is Brian
Hartgen's
excellent portal page at:
http://www.hartgen.org/portable.html
He reviews many devices including the Ipod, DAISY players etc. It should be
said that many
players are not strong on visual displays, and indeed many, such as the
Plexters and others
issued by RNIB don't have displays at all - pretty certain of that.
Finally, I would be interested to hear from anyone regarding moving to CD. I
tend to live
in a world where cassette has been relegated virtually to history, but I know
many want to
stick with it. Apart from not being able to resume easilly, I find it hard to
see why
cassettes are still popular, apart from cost of replacing them, and maybe
reluctance to
learn to use newer equipment.
I have a personal interest here as I always try to promote CD and other means
of listening
to audio spoken material simply because CD, whether compact disc format, MP3 or
DAISY is so
much more navigable.
From Rayet
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
Of Brendan Magill
Hi everyone,
Apologies if this question seems a bit naive, but I have as yet no
experience of the technology involved.
I'm looking for a modern and convenient way of playing audio books. In
the past I've used tape and found that very good in its day. I haven't
really felt comfortable with CDs, so have never got into listening to
books in that format. I'm an avid reader and am looking for some up to
date technology which will give me access to mainstream reading material.
My thought is to use something like an iPOD as a portable reading
device. Looking around on the Web, there are clearly plenty of sites
from which I could download unabridged books. I could then transfer
these to an iPOD or something similar. This would seem like a nice way
of doing it.
I've got no experience of iPODS, so don't know what functionality there
would be on these units. The most useful function would seem to be to
be able to bookmark my current place, so as to be able to start reading
from where I left off. It would be good, too, to be able to move back a
paragraph, or a few seconds, so as to pick up the story when starting to
read again. Other functions, such as skipping back or farward a chapter
at a time might be useful, but are probably not essential. The other
issue is about how much memory is required to store a book; some large
books can be more than forty hours in length, but how much memory does
this take?
Short of going out and buying an iPOD, I'm not sure how to find out
these things; yet I don't want to buy the wrong one. I'd therefore
welcome any thoughts and suggestions from list members on this topic.
It might be useful, too, to know something about how easy it would be to
use these devices with low vision; I use a hand lens for reading and
can cope with most text displays, but it ought to be possible to do
these things without looking at the display.
So, any thoughts and comments will be most welcome.
Cheers,
Brendan.
--
BRENDAN MAGILL
Business, Employment &
Disability Consultancy
8 York Place
Worcester
WR1 3DR
England
Phone: +44 (0)1905 28286
Fax: +44 (0)870 127 7856
Web: www.magill.co.uk
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