Frank,
The NLS person who emailed me privately said they could have done it with
that extra control on the machine. And perhaps, one would just have to set
that control one time and that would be that. Someone could do it for the
people who couldn't do it for themselves.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank Ventura
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 5:33 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: After You DB82661
Miriam, earphones wouldn't fix the issue you speak of. To fix that issue you
would have to run the audio through digital signal processing (DSP) to be
"normalized". That requires some pretty sophisticated and powerful
equipment. I doubt it would be able to be implemented within the player
itself. That would probably require an external processor and amplifier.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 10:43 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: After You DB82661
Thanks, Penny. I do want to explain that ambient noise has nothing to do
with this issue. The issue is that range of the volume level is much wider
in digital recording than in analog recording. So if you set the volume
level on the machine that is high enough for you to hear what you are
listening to, the level constantly changes because the narrator reads at
different volumes constantly changing depending on how he or she reads
dialogue between various characters. Whether or not you're using earphones,
you would have to keep changing the volume level. Usually, narrators read
the straight narration at one level and change only for dialogue. In this
particular book, she read the straight narration very softly so the volume
became unbearably loud for much of the dialogue. The NLS person on the BARD
list explained to me that there is a fix for this, but they just chose not
to include it when they built the digital player. The reason that the
problem is worse with commercial books is that it is the commercial market
that determined that reading the books should be a performance, rather than
just good, clear, reading with appropriate expression and pauses for
pronunciation. A lot of things followed from this decision, including using
people with authentic accents from various countries to read books which
take place in those countries. The narrators without accents, put them on.
All I've ever wanted, even when my hearing was absolutely fine, was to hear
the book read well. If I wanted a performance, I'd attend the theater or a
film. But much of the commercial practise has leaked into what NLS narrators
do, like changing the pitch of the voice for male and female, acquiring
accents for certain characters. If you add all of these practises onto these
huge changes in volume which take place when there's dialogue, the
experience can become unmanageable. But like the experience of poor.
eyesight, the experience of poor hearing is difficult to communicate which
is why so many people have mentioned earphones as a solution.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Penny Reeder
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 9:10 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: kimcharlson@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: After You DB82661
Hi Miriam, I have been the representative from Library Users of America
(LUA) on the NLS Equipment committee for a few years. I don't know if Kim
will re-appoint me to this position, but I will make sure to bring this
issue before the committee and insist, as much as I can, that it be
addressed.
Meanwhile, an NLS patron can receive headphones from a cooperating library
-- all one has to do is ask -- and I'm wondering if using headphones might
block out some of the ambient noise in y our environment and make books
easier to hear. Unfortunately, these are not wireless headphones, and so
their use could be somewhat problematic while falling asleep, but it might
be worth giving tyhem a try.
I am going to cc Kim Charlson, in case she's thinking of sending someone
else to the next meetings of that committee -- so that that person will be
sure to address this issue even if I'm not there.
I am happy to continue to represent LUA in this way, but it's up to LUA;'s
president and the ACB president as well.
Penny
On 11/12/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Below is an email that I sent to NLS today. I thought some of youappropriate staff members.
might be interested in what I told them. I received a response,
thanking me and telling me that it would be forwarded on to the
There is a member of the Bard talk list whose name I can't remember,they meant to the elderly.
who works for NLS and who emailed me privately a few years ago when I
began asking about the changes of volume in the new books. He told me
that when they were designing the NLS digital player, he suggested an
additional control which would compensate for the differences in
volume that occur in digital books. But his superiors said that an
additional control on the machine would be confusing to people. I
assume
This is unfortunate because we're the folks who need it.impaired hearing.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni [mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 12:55 PM
To: 'NLSDownload'
Subject: After You DB82661
I'm writing about this book, but I am also writing about a broader issue.
I'm not sure that you are the right people for me to communicate with,
about the broader issue. But if not, perhaps you can direct my
comments to the appropriate person.
About this book which is commercially produced. Now that I'm old, I've
developed hearing issues along with barely being able to see. The NLS
player is wonderful, in that one can use the controls to adjust each
individual book so that it can be more easily heard. But there is no
way of dealing with the changes of volume within the narration of a
book. This particular book is especially difficult to hear. The
narrator has a British accent and she does the main narration of the
book in a very soft, confidential tone, difficult to hear. She speaks
more loudly for the characters, but this also varies. I did speak with
a sighted person whose hearing is fine, who listened to the same
commercial version as NLS has, and she told me that she found the
volume hanges in the book excessive. For me, the recording was so
difficult to hear, that I had to get the Bookshare version of the book
so that I could read without missing anything. That was really
disappointing because I much prefer to hear human narration. I've done
this only twice in the past and it was with books that I'd gotten
directly from Audible. I've never had to do this with an NLS book
before. And actually, I've stopped getting books from Audible because
the recording quality is so unpredictable.
I think there is a broader issue here. If I'm not mistaken, the
majority of legally blind people in the US are newly blinded elderly
people. I think it's safe to assume that a good percentage of them
have
My
evidence is that within the past few years, (I'm now 78 hears old), I
keep receiving advertisements for hearing aids in the mail. So if a
lot of these elderly blind people begin to use the NLS talking book
program and if the talking book program uses more and more
commercially produced books without making some kind of technical fix
to make it easier to hear the books, there are a lot of folks who
won't benefit from the program, and that would be terrible. I'm told
that these severe changes in volume level are related to the fact that
the books are digitally recorded. Even within the NLS program, there's
a big difference between the books recorded by NLS narrators in the
90's and books recorded now. Books recrded by the same narrator in the
90's are easier to hear than the ones she records now. And I notice
differences in the sound quality of NLS produced books that come from
different studios.
However, there seems to be much more unpredictability with the
commercial books. I know that most of the younger blind folks on email
lists, love the commercial books and they also like all of the
performing rather than just good, expressive reading. Even when my
hearing was fine, I never liked all of what I consider to be,
overacting. But I do think that if you are wanting to serve those of
us who are old, it would be helpful to try to come up with a solution.
Not all of us use hearing aids, nor do I think that hearing aids would
help in these situations, especially for those of us who listen to a
book while falling asleep at night. I also do appreciate how much more
efficient it is to use commercial books that are already produced. You
can get them more quickly and it may be less expensive. So I hope
that either a change can be made in our NLS players, or that you can
do something with the recordings when you convert them into daisy
format to even out the changes in volume.
Miriam Vieni
