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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