[bookport] Re: gripes and wishes from a new subscriber
- From: "Richard Ring" <ring.richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 11:09:20 -0600
It is a matter of personal opinion, I love Doubletalk, and I loathe
Keynote Gold and the more natural sounding SAPI voices such as Neo
Speech and AT&T natural voices to me are a nightmare if you attempt to
speed them up.
-----Original Message-----
From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Parks
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 6:19 PM
To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookport] Re: gripes and wishes from a new subscriber
I agree with everything you said, especially file sorting, SD
cards and playlists. I would also like to see a better speech
synthesizer. I know that the quality of a synth is mostly
personal opinion, but the one on the BP right now is quite bad. I
would like to see Eloquence or KeyNote Gold, if not RealSpeak or
the speech of Natural TTS.
Have a great day and a happy New Year,
Alex
> ----- Original Message -----
>From: "Chris Zenchenko" <wb9rsq@xxxxxxxxxx
>To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date sent: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 16:46:03 -0600
>Subject: [bookport] gripes and wishes from a new subscriber
>I have decided to put my favorite gripes and wishes out on the
list before
>trying to find out if they have been posted before.
>In this way anyone at APH who sees my comments will know that
they are not
>influenced by people already on this list.
>I have supported several folks running bookports and finally
decided I
>wanted one of my own so my understanding of the product is based
on more
>than first impressions.
>So here we go.
> hardware issues
>1. USB power:
>I can see no reason not to allow USB power to operate the
bookport when it
>is connected to a computer.
>In addition this would allow external battery packs or power
supplies to run
>the bookport without having to add a power jack.
>2. If USB power is possible then why not charge batteries with
it:
>This one gets slightly more tricky since if you had normal
batteries in the
>BP you would have an issue with automatically charging via USB.
>A switch either software or hardware could be added to make this
possible.
>I have a ham radio portable that has a menu choice that sets
battery type
>and switches off the charging current when normal battery pack is
selected.
>I realize that this suggestion does open up a support nightmare.
>3. Add an SD slot or CF to SD converter card:
>CF is on it's way out. SD is moving up and many products and
companies no
>longer find CF viable.
>I have many CF cards but the prices have probably gone as low as
they will
>and in some cases are starting to rise on mid to high sized
cards.
>SD is clearly moving up and with the release of the HC specc (up
to 32GB)
>will take more and more market share since the target is video
and digital
>cameras.
>That's it from the hardware side of things.
> Software functions and issues.
>1. File sort order:
>This one is a real PITA!
>Let's say you have file names such as
>3145_01.mp3
>3145_02.mp3
>3145_03.mp3
>3149_01.mp3
>3149_02.mp3
>3149_03.mp3
>Now you copy all of these to the BP.
>They should play in sequence but in fact the last file
3149_03.mp3 will be
>first in the BP list.
>If you load several files at different times the sequence will be
almost in
>order from each load session but the order issue remains within
each group
>and overall causes files to play in scrambled order if you use
automatic
>file advance.
>This is a major gripe since if you have a book in chapters, one
per file,
>and the files are not sorted by name correctly you can't read the
book from
>start to finish without user intervention.
>2. Playlists:
>This one would in part solve item 1 but would just be nice.
>The ability to have a simple text file that would step the BP
through files
>in the order the user wants would be great.
>Also playlists in the .m3u format are almost universal. It would
also allow
>applications such as Winamp to generate lists to go along with
the files you
>send to the BP.
>3. file titles from ID tags:
>ID v2.0 tags for .mp3 and .mp4 along with many other file types
including
>..wav are industry standard and almost universal.
>I think the BP should be able to read the file name or any one of
the major
>ID tag items such as artist, title, album, through a user menu
selection.
>A combination of these would be even better.
>Example Artist, "book title", title "Chapter number and title"
would be much
>more useful than just an alphabet soup of a file name such as
THC_b1c01.
>4. ability to read text type PDF:
>That one doesn't need much elaboration. A PDF with text rather
than picture
>based pages should be readable without jumping through
translation hoops.
>5. Better sample rates for memos:
>Nice to see 22,050 mono 16 bit. Huge improvement in quality and
with the
>size of CF cards these days should not be to much trouble for
many users.
>I run several 4gb cards and have at least two 2gb and one 1gb for
stand-by.
>That's it for now. Clearly I still like the BP and think it was
the best
>option out there or I would not have purchased one.
>The items listed above would in my opinion just make it that much
better. I
>am sure there are users on this list who will find fault with my
list but
>probably there are just as many who have noticed these themselves
and may
>have even written to the list.
>I will be happy to discuss any of these with list members or APH
developers,
>but no flames!
>With more than 20 years on the net and in news groups and on
listservs I
>know how simple comments can be blown sky high.
>So feel free to write me privately or via the list but let's keep
it
>professional and constructive.
>Thanks in advance and 73
>Chris Zenchenko
>Skype wb9rsq
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