I think the only mild gripe (and it is an extremely mild one) is that it
would be nice if my Plextalk would forget that it has reached the end of an
album. I suppose that is a small price to pay for the ability to store up to
10,000 bookmarks.
Iain.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 3:32 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: BBC NEWS | Technology | Not long left for cassette
tapes (I feel no pain)
Hi Ian, Steve, Kevin and others. Hope you are all enjoying the all too short hot spell. I feel all the better having got back from a refreshing swim.
I brought up the freely available Daisy player as a counter to arguments around not being able to stop the recording and get back to where you were. This, along with markers, surely addresses the take up where you left off argument for cassettes. For a moderate cost you can buy something like the Scholar or Vibe which are just as portable as walkman cassette machines.
On the high quality music front, I never felt at all confident in the abilities of audio cassette. I have recently bought high quality Nakaminchi and Revox cassette recorders which have adjustable azimuth to get around the appalling problem of head alignment while transferring cassettes, which upsets entirely the benefits of Dolby noise reduction You can buy, or hire, very expensive hardware by Cedar to do the same, but this is a much more cost effective way of doing it..
I had read of the difficulties of Soundings continuing CD duplication. Afraid that's all too typical of the vol sector and perpetual funding crises. Still, I look forward to the day when the cassette will no longer be any sort of alternative. This is why I am so reluctant to invest scarce money in a lot of cassette duplication machines and will keep hoping something turns up on eBay to fulfil this, fortunately, short term need.
Ray
Personal emails: Email me at mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
----- Original Message ----- From: "Iain Lackie" <ilackie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 3:09 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: BBC NEWS | Technology | Not long left for cassette tapes (I feel no pain)
Ray,
I only have to think of the sad case of Soundings magazine and the
disadvantages of the cassette medium become obvious. When they had to stop
sending out CD's, I told them not to bother sending me the cassettes to
which we were all defaulted. As long as the digital files are available to
us and my PC is working, there is no need for me to receive the cassette
version where navigation is difficult and sound quality is less than the
computer files.
Iain.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 11:54 AM
Subject: [access-uk] BBC NEWS | Technology | Not long left for cassette
tapes (I feel no pain)
Interesting post Colin, not least the reflections on the by-gone days of
real time copying and the record industry's anxst over life copying in the
slow lane, so to speak. Sure they'd have those days back again if only
they could!
What perplexes me at times is how slow many of the VI community are in
accepting the benefits of digital media, and particularly DAISY and DAISY
players, especially as you can get these for free on loan. One bloke I
know moaned about the fact that his JAWS manuals didn't come on cassette,
but on CD. He went out and bought a bog standard walkman-type CD player
to play them on, in spite of the fact I'd told him about the DAISY
players' availability through the Talking Book arrangements with Local
Authorities. The DAISY format addresses all the criticisms of the lack of
ease about picking up where you left off, and you can mark areas of disks
you are interested in, and just as easily remove the marks afterwards.
Then there are still those who tell me how good it is that cassettes for
magazines etc can be recycled and therefore how cost effective they still
are. Really? How many of you have gone through the process of bulk
erasing cassettes, and the time that adds to recycling hundreds of the
damn things? Not to mention they sometimes, not very often though, snarl
up. You can buy blank CDs in bulk for 10-15p each and it matters not that
they aren't re-usable. Add to that the possibility of distributing in MP3
or other format, and the time savings in duplication are obvious.
Eventually all this duplication should become a thing of the past when we
get an easy to use internet player, rather like a radio -cassette player
to use. Oh yes, I knew the cassette would have to appear again somehow.
Thank goodness it is only in the form of a metaphor for the interface to
operate the superior new digital players.
For those who have missed the original Colin posted, go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4099904.stm
Ray
Personal emails: Email me at mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
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