why would someone want to spend $$$ on a book courier to play text
recorded in mp3 if portable mp3 players are available at much lower cost?
The reason I want a book courier - or rather actually a book port -
is that it allows navigation of text files byparagraph, line, word or
even character and check the spelling and such, something that cannot
be done with either audio books or converted text2audio files.
I am not a particular fan of Doubletalk as it reads too slow IMO, at
least it did on the old doubletalk card I had, but I'd prefer
hardware over software speech any time because of hardware speech's
higher responsiveness and much lesser drain on resources.
I've heard somewhere that there is a major rework of Bookport in the
works, which is one reason that has let me hold off on looking into
purchasing one at the time. From what I remember, this revamp was
also to include a new voice or voices for bookport. Since book
courier is a very similar if not related device, I wonder if a
similar upgrade or new version is not also a possibility for book courier.
Unfortunately I do not have a written source for the Bookport upgrade
information but only heard people talk about it.
I think the bookworm is intersting for people who are good with
braille and prefer braille over speech output. I myself don't know
enough braille and have never used any peperless braille device but
know that people who are fluent braille readers usually prefer braille output.
Another thing to consider though is the storage capacity of whatever
portable unit is to be decided on. The book Courier or Bookport is
fairly new technology and can use changeable memory cards for
storage. I think the bookworm is more contempory to the older
Roadrunner book reading device that only came with 2 or 3 megs of
onboard memory for storage. But I do not have specifications on the
bookworm and do not know if it can use flash or other similar
storage. I just wanted to point out that this is something else to consider.
Cheers,
doris
At 10:39 AM 8/31/2005 +0100, you wrote:
Hi Mel
I have never used either product, but I would point out that with the book Courier and Text Aloud from www.nextup.com, you can convert text to mp3 files at high speed using Microsoft's text-to-speech engine or any other Sapi speech synthesiser that you might have. They also sell the A T and T Natural Voices, Cepstral Voices, Neospeech Voices and I believe according to their user forums they will have Real speak Version 4 soon as well. So you could make mp3 files of your texts and then play them on the Book Courier. Obviously this will be a little more work, and will use more battery power. The reason that the Book Courier's speech isn't that brilliant is that it is using a hardware speech chip rather than the software synthesisers we have become used to in desktop screen readers. The advantage of this, though is that you can read text documents which take up less space in its memory than mp3 files and use less battery power because there is no decoding process involved.
As far as the bookworm goes, yes it has an eight-character braille display and you transfer texts to its internal memory. I'm sure someone else can step in to fill in the details.
James ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mel Spooner" <mel.spooner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 10:05 AM Subject: [access-uk] Book Courier Vs Bookworm
> Hi All, > > I am looking for a portable solution for reading. I know that the Book > Courier will play Daisy files as well as MP3 files. I also know that it > will read text files using synthetic speech. I've listened to the sample > on the web site and wonder how anyone gets used to it, but I guess you do! > > I know a lot less about the bookworm. Am I right in thinking it has a > Braille display? And what are its capabilities? > > If anyone has evaluated the two products, I be really interested to hear > your views. > > Thanks for your help. > > Mel > > Mel Spooner > edIT Help Desk > Nottinghamshire County Council > Tel 0115 854 6116 > Email mel.spooner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > E-mails and any attachments from Nottinghamshire County Council are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the e-mail, and then delete it without making copies or using it in any other way. > > Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of Nottinghamshire County Council unless otherwise specifically stated. > > Although any attachments to the message will have been checked for viruses before transmission, you are urged to carry out your own virus check before opening attachments, since the County Council accepts no responsibility for loss or damage caused by software viruses. > > Senders and recipients of email should be aware that, under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the contents may have to be disclosed in response to a request. > > Nottinghamshire County Council Legal Disclaimer > > > ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- > ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] > ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: > ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > ** and in the Subject line type > ** unsubscribe > ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the > ** immediately-following link:- > ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] > ** or send a message, to > ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq >
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