[bookshare-discuss] Re: AUDIBLE.COM
- From: Bill Cox <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 13:44:01 -0500
I guess there's no "right answer" about what the best way to listen to
a book. I find the Eloquence voice not annoying at all, even though
it does not sound very natural. Actually, it's quite the reverse.
When people try to explain something to me, I find myself wishing I
could hit the speed-up keys! In the end, it has to come down to
personal preference. In my case, I'm just now losing my central
vision, at 46 years old, but I read normally my entire life. I think
fast, but I could never read quickly, and I've found reading very
frustrating. I've been creating my own audio books with TTS, and now
I can "read" about 3X faster. I feel like I've been reading my whole
life in first gear, and now someone has pointed out that I have more
gears. I've gone through more books in six months than I have in the
previous ten years.
Bill
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 5:53 PM, traci <season@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have a question. I know this was discussed a couple of weeks ago but I
> really didn't follow the discussion. How do the voices not get on your
> nerves? The reason I like audiobooks so much better than bookshare is that I
> am using the microsoft voice Ana which comes with vrs. I I have that thing
> set to read at a rate that is so fast my kids laugh when they hear me
> listening to it. Nobody understands what it is saying except me. But I do
> it because the voice is so robotic and annoying. I don't own a book reader
> for my own personal reasons and have nothing against those who do. At the
> same time, and at the risk of offending anyone, I don't wish to be emailed
> off list extoling the virtues of book readers. I have two toddlers and have
> too much stuff to carry at any given time so having my cell read the books
> is a better fit for me. Even with reading the books on my phone, brf files
> studder, blocks of text are skipped and the search command doesn't work. You
> can't imagine how frustrating it is to have to read the book from the
> beginning each time a continuous read is interrupted. Can someone reccomend
> a good natural sounding voice? this way i can se text aloud and convert the
> files into mp3 which might make for a much better reading experience? I just
> like the voices better on audio, always have. I read a lot of Alex Cross
> books by James Paterson and I refuse to read them on bookshare. They would
> just sound too flat without all the special effects. Yes, it is cheaper to
> get them digitally but in some cases, you get what you pay for. Another
> thing I hate is while reading with VRS on my pc, instead of reading the word
> dr. as doctor, it keeps saying drive and it is driving me crazy! I am
> reading a medical thriller and it just takes so much of the story away in my
> humble opinion, to hear drive Judith did this or that.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Cox" <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 5:21 AM
> Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: AUDIBLE.COM
>
>
>> My problem with audible.com is the speech rate. Just because I'm
>> losing some vision doesn't mean I want to read at 150 wpm! The
>> Eloquence voice at around 400-600 wpm seems optimal to me, for
>> enjoyment purposes. There are exceptions... I loved the Hitchhiker's
>> Guide to the Galaxy radio show, but that was a performance
>> specifically developed for radio, with a totally different script and
>> several actors.
>>
>> No, the vast majority of books for me in the future will be TTS
>> generated mp3s on my phone. Anything else is just painful. I
>> honestly can't say there's a single book on audible.com I'd be in the
>> least bit interested in.
>>
>> Do you think there would be any interest at Bookshare to develop
>> iPhone and Anroid applications that read Bookshare books for members?
>> MP3s are nice, but I'd like an application that can speed up/down, and
>> rewind in increments of seconds, and which has a good range of voices.
>>
>> Bill
>> To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank Email to
>> bookshare-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the Subject line. To get a list
>> of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
>>
>
> To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank Email to
> bookshare-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the Subject line. To get a list of
> available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
>
>
To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank Email to
bookshare-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the Subject line. To get a list of
available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
Other related posts:
