[icon-discuss] Re: Improving NLS on Icon and Braille Plus
- From: "Steve Dresser" <s.dresser@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thcumings@xxxxxxxxxxx>, <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <ljgehres@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Icon and Braille Plus Discussion List'" <icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:47:36 -0400
Tim,
I have a feeling that it would have cost a lot more than $20 to get the kind
of quality improvement we want. Would you have been willing to pay an extra
$200, or maybe even $500?
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "tim cumings" <thcumings@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <ljgehres@xxxxxxxxxxx>; "'Icon and Braille Plus
Discussion List'" <icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 15:17
Subject: [icon-discuss] Re: Improving NLS on Icon and Braille Plus
Mark, although I appreciate your honesty regarding the nls implementation, I
feel this was shortsighted
on Levelstar's and Aph's part. I would have been willing to pay an extra $20
up
front if I had known that this
would allow the full and best implementation of the nls system, and I'm sure
other bp and icon owners would
have paid that cost as well. The icon and bp are still the only notetakers
at
this point that play the nls
digital talking books, and so at least for now, there are only three devices
that play these books:
On a related issue, once nls goes public with its updated web site and ends
the
pilot
program, are their plans to improve the icon interface with the nls web
site,
similar to the icon's
interface with bookshare? The icon and bp are the only two devices at this
point that can directly
download nls books, both brf and audio. I'd think this would be a very good
marketing point for
levelstar and aph.On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:11:59 -0600, Marc Mulcahy wrote:
OK, here's the scoop. There are two issues here. First is that NLS chose
an audio codec for which there are not many inexpensive and/or efficient
implementations. The least expensive implementation we've found costs over
$20,000, and that's lots of Icon and Braille+ sales. As a result, we use a
freely available, and not extremely efficient, reference implementation.
In our latest private betas, we've improved the efficiency of the decoder
such that it seems you can speed NLS playback up to 220% without any
break-up, so you should see this improvement in a release soon.
The second issue is that some don't like the sound of the timescale
modification which we use to speed up the audio. We have no plans to
change
TSM at the moment.
Marc
-----Original Message-----
From: icon-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:icon-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Linda Gehres
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 5:15 PM
To: Icon and Braille Plus Discussion List
Subject: [icon-discuss] Improving NLS on Icon and Braille Plus
Irwin, I totally agree with you, and that's why I haven't
taken the plunge yet into getting with the NLS pilot program
till this issue is resolved. Yes, I've seen the new and
improved Victor Streams, but I think it's absolutely
ridiculous to purchase a second machine in order to hear
computerized NLS books. I know there's been a lot of comment
on the discussion list about this issue, and I, too, hope it
can be resolved. I do, however, wonder if part of the
problem is with the NLS formatting. Is that formatting just
in the development stage, and is NLS assuming that everyone
interested in reading digital books is going with the
Humanware product? That doesn't sound fair to me either, and
I gather one cannot just download digital NLS books on
computer. Hopefully it's a situation where I'm just confused
and don't have all of the information. But, please, a
comment from someone in the know at Levelstar and or APH
would be greatly appreciated.
Linda Gehres
If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender
only.
If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related
to
LevelStar or APH then consider sending your message to
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Icon Discuss Mailing List
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
//www.freelists.org/list/icon-discuss
To unsubscribe from the list send a blank message with unsubscribe in the
subject line to:
icon-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To post to this list, send your message to:
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For answers to the most frequently asked questions about Icon and Braille
+,
Visit
the LevelStar and APH FAQ pages:
Visit the LevelStar FAQ page at
http://www.levelstar.com/support-faqs.php
Visit the APH FAQ page at
http://sun1.aph.org/webcast/brailleplus2/faq.html
If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only.
If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to
LevelStar or APH then consider sending your message to
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Icon Discuss Mailing List
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
//www.freelists.org/list/icon-discuss
To unsubscribe from the list send a blank message with unsubscribe in the
subject line to:
icon-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To post to this list, send your message to:
icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For answers to the most frequently asked questions about Icon and Braille +,
Visit
the LevelStar and APH FAQ pages:
Visit the LevelStar FAQ page at
http://www.levelstar.com/support-faqs.php
Visit the APH FAQ page at
http://sun1.aph.org/webcast/brailleplus2/faq.html
Other related posts:
