Re: Android Astro player can speed up audio books 6X
- From: Bill Cox <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:39:49 -0400
Hi, Don. There's no fundamental limitation in Sonic, but there is in
human speech. At 6X speed up, voxin has either one or two "pitch
epochs" for most vowels, and it's amazing that Sina can still
understand words that change so fast. My own limitations keep me to
speeds below 4X. I read one article that said brain scans of blind
people who listen at super-high speeds show major activity in their
visual cortex. Mine's in use for vision processing, plus I'm an old
guy, which may explain my limitation.
To get higher speed from espeak, speech-dispatcher has to be modified
to convert the speed range (-100 to 100) selected by the user to
higher words per minute parameters to espeak. I patched the older
speech dispatcher. My understanding is that there are now parameters
in the latest version of speech-dispatcher that enable the higher
speed range, though I don't know if it made it into natty.
Bill
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Don Marang <donald.marang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> They should have at least comp'ed you on the upgrades for life! I am glad
> to see sonic continue to get incorporated everywhere. Is there new,
> improved sonic code to get to 6x? I thought the max was 4x (not that my
> ears are capable to understand at these speeds). I think at least 3x should
> be a requirement for any audio book player.
>
>
> Speaking of 'sonic everywhere', do you have any idea why the sonic code
> incorporated into espeak refuses to function in Vinux 3.2 (Ubuntu 11.0.4
> Natty)?
>
> I have been tempted to get an Android device and start fighting
> accessibility battles for Android. Having a good audio book reader makes it
> even more tempting. Get Netflix working on more devices and allow playback
> of NLS books and I am sold.
>
>
> Don Marang
> Vinux Software Development Coordinator - vinuxproject.org
> There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real
> substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working
> on things that matter.
> -- Dean Kamen
>
> On 7/10/2011 10:54 AM, Bill Cox wrote:
>
> Full disclosure: I wrote the speedup library, which is free software
> described at http://dev.vinux-project.org/sonic.
>
> I don't think Android is accessible enough for prime time use by the blind,
> but for a low-vision geek like me, it's great. The best audio player is
> arguably Astro Player Nova. It now can speed up audio books I make using
> Voxin and/or Eloquence by up to 6 times faster, with any speed from half
> speed up adjustable on the fly. That's faster than 99% in JAWs. Hopefully
> the technology (which is free as in speech) will become pervasive in audio
> book players. Astro Player Nova is free as in beer, unless you want the
> cool upgrades like on the fly speed adjustment, in which case it costs $3.
> Yeah, I wrote the library, licensed it LGPL, and now I have to pay to use
> it! Oh, well... at least the developers thanked me.
>
> Bill
>
>
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