[icon-discuss] Re: Improving NLS on Icon and Braille Plus
- From: "Marc Mulcahy" <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ljgehres@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Icon and Braille Plus Discussion List'" <icon-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:11:59 -0600
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
>
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