Ben,
Yes, it has indeed been a topic for some time. I'm quite used to
double-talk now and favor it because I can always understand what is being
said. I liken it to haveing a friend who is foreign-born with a thick
accent. At first you can't understand a word they say, but over time you
get used to his way of speaking and can understand him perfectly. He
hasn't
lost his accent - you've just trained your ear.
Not that there aren't some better voices around. It might take a hardware
upgrade to get the BC to have new voices available. I expect we'll see a
whole new BC in the next couple of years with lots of new features like
multiple voice synths, USB 2 support (for faster transfers) and maybe
compatibility with the new Library of Congress electronic talking book
format.
You can do the text-to-mp3 conversion, but you lose word-by-word
navigation
and spelling features.
Hope you enjoy your BC - I couldn't live without mine!
Ted
________________________________
From: bookcourier-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bookcourier-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bennie and
Catherine
van Rensburg
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 9:05 AM
To: bookcourier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookcourier] BETTER VOICES?
Hallo There!
I've only been using Book Courier for a month and have found it to be a
most
useful piece of electronics. Previously, when I travelled, I couldn't
read
any books, as a laptop was almost as much trouble to carry around as a
desktop!
I bought my Book Courier with open eyes, as it were, having listened to
Exact Pete on-line. However, I still found it amazing that Springer isn't
using a better voice. To my mind, there is so much better available now.
I
put this point to support, suggesting Eloquence or IBM Read. They told
me,
in a very courteous reply, that this issue had been discussed often before
on the list and that there were as many preferences as there were voices.
So I apologise if I'm introducing a hackneyed subject, but don't you guys
think there's something better out there than Double-Talk?
Regards.
Bennie
Ben and Catherine van Rensburg
c/o South African Embassy
Granatny Per 1, bldg 9
123001 MOSCOW
Tel: +7 495 2990326 (Home) Note: New area code for Moscow
Mobile (Ben) +7 8 915 397 6347
Mobile (Catherine) +7 8 915 300 40 43
South Africa +27 12 667 3545 (Parents/Claudia)
