Topic by cachondo 2011-07-20 17:13:18

  • From: The United Kingdom
  • Registered: 2011-03-11
  • Posts: 68

Hi all,

I was just skimming through the books topic and noted that many of you like Harry Potter.  There are, of course, two audio versions of those available, but every fanfiction I've seen (which is of course popular in the blind community) is not available in audio form (other than Barb's psychic serpent series of course).

So I got to wondering about your views on reading with text to speech.

I had a Road Runner several years ago, which was a portable reading device.  it had 3 MB internal memory and used a serial port to transfer books.  It's long-since been discontinued, but was a marvelous little thing at the time.  it used a doubletalk synthesizer.

of course almost every other portable reading machine on the market nowadays uses more Human-sounding voices - and I can't seem to get on with them at all.  So I still use a book courier, on occasion, which is the successor to the road runner (it now uses flash cards and USB in place of internal memory and the serial port).  It still uses doubletalk to speak, though, and runs on two AA batteries, which are the two factors that mean I'll keep it for as long as I can.

but, even with that, I find myself preferring to read with eloquence, because I'm just so used to it.  Since JAWS 5 introduced a speech and sounds manager, I think it was v 5, I've found myself loving the "quotation voice" feature.  having just a slightly different voice to differentiate dialogue from narrative makes the reading experience much better for me.

I reread harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone a few months back.  My original listen on the radio when I was 13 took me 8 and a half hours.  my reread with eloquence? 118 minutes.

so, your views on synthesizers, on EBooks versus audio and so forth, would be quite interesting.

__
I Tweet. I Blog. I Read.  I am Cachondo.

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Reply by cx2 2011-07-21 12:01:51

  • cx2
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  • Registered: 2005-08-25
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Given a choice I prefer getting the audio book via Audible but I've taken to reading the Dresden Files books with iBooks on my iPhone because the UK branch of Audible only have the first four Dresden Files audio books, and nowhere in the UK sells the physical versions. I refuse to import them from the US because of both hassle and expense. I find it pretty acceptable overall, though I do tend to slow the speech rate down so I can think about what I'm hearing more.

I've read a few stories online as well and that can work well too. I will note though that things like the quotation voice as you mentioned are part of Jaws and anything else using Eloquence won't have that unless the screen reader itself is programmed for it, unfortunately.

cx2
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Reply by cachondo 2011-07-21 23:13:16

  • From: The United Kingdom
  • Registered: 2011-03-11
  • Posts: 68

Cx2,

You mention that the quotation voice is a JAWS only thing.  Because we recently had a baby I found myself unable to read at the computer for long stretches.  So now I just take pre-recorded eloquence wave files on my little MP3 player.  it took a little fiddling around but a little work netted me acceptable quality.

On the subject of talking books, the RNIB of course have the monopoly in the UK as far as blindness goes, but their tendency to only do parts (and not beginnings) of series frustrates me greatly.  Their streaming service, at £50 a year for 5 books at once, is a great deal, though. I use audible and iTunes as an absolute last resort owing to the DRM. 

I must admit, since the Ebook took off, I find it's cheaper and much faster than audio for me personally.  I buy from Kobo Books, usually, who sell in the EPub format.

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I Tweet. I Blog. I Read.  I am Cachondo.

cachondo's Website

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