Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

I help run the local Talking Newspaper, and as I'm sure many here are
aware, the compact cassette has been the mainstay of the distribution for
many many years.
Its plus points are.
its easy and fast to duplicate.
Its easy to use by the users.
It has hardware bookmarking, by which I mean that if you take it out, it
remembers where it was and can be inserted into any player and start from
that point.
its cheap both in player and in replacement of the cassette itself.
its reusable many many times, and apart from recently, is pretty immune to
post office abuse.

Now we are told its days are numbered, but.. This is artificial. Lots of
people still use them, and yet, the industry seems to have decided to kill
it off.

There seems to be no replacement for our use, without a lot of extra
investment and training of both volunteers and users.

Lets loot at what is out there.

CD. A great idea on the surface, and yes, it can be duplicated fast.
Snags. it is use once throw away, and requires all users to have a cd player
which is usable by blind people. This is not as easy as it sounds, and the
costs of the number of listeners times 52 weeks in a year is quite
substantial for a charity. You also lose 10 minutes on a cd, against
cassettes.

Reusable cds, not viable due to not all players playing them, and the slow
copy times due to the way they work. I assume nobody has perfected a 16
times rewritable recorder copy stack yet? Still the time constraints and
the unknowns of will their player play it are a problem
Minidisc? Going the way of Cassettes. Sony missed the whole point here. We
needed an Amstrad to make it work like a cassette instead of a multi choice
question and answer session to record auntie may.
Ram sticks/sd cards Well, on the face of it, a good idea, but the medium is
still expensive and over long for our needs. No players in mass production
at a low cost save the Boom Box and it means buying everyone a player as
nobody has one. Roberts and others have sd card slots in recent portable
gear though. Some tests with people with diabetic related sight loss show us
that sd cards are just too fiddly for fingers losing their feeling.

The younger folk may be happy, and who knows, some player may be able to add
a bookmark at some point, who knows? However, sd cards will be lost, ram
sticks pinched and smashed in the mail.

Direct internet supply. This has the great advantage of being instant. No
copying, no post office. Instant news. Snag is, that the only talking usable
player is the Orion and its badge engineered clones that are wireless or
cabled broadband devices. Very few of our users have even got a computer, so
why would they want to pay for broadband just for us? Well there are quite a
few services on it now, but we still come back to cost and training, and
the loss of portability of the material without a computer and the know how
to copy the content to an I pod or similar.

Lastly, and this is a development from ram sticks, some tns are using ipod
like mp3 players, very cheap ones, to distribute the newspaper, which means
that they need headphones or an amplifier.
Have I missed any?
The snag here is that we are talking about probably one of the least well
off groups in the disability sector here. Very unlikely to have jobs or
savings, and often on income support, so any solution has to be cheap.

Cassettes are the answer for many, still and unless some new format comes
along which is bought into as much as this was, its hard to avoid the fact
that in around 2 to five years we will have to use some other mode of
distribution.
Any comments?

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

In article , Brian Gaff
wrote:

Hi Brian,

I've been wondering about asking you about issues related to this. Things
like the tendency for modern equipment to have a remote control and
on-screen menus. I suspect that can be awkward for some people. But cheaper
for makers as they can omit most physical controls from the unit. With a
number of newer items I have, I do wonder how someone with sight problems
would easily use them!

I would be interested in your comments on that. I've put my reactions to
your points below...

CD. A great idea on the surface, and yes, it can be duplicated fast.
Snags. it is use once throw away, and requires all users to have a cd
player which is usable by blind people. This is not as easy as it
sounds, and the costs of the number of listeners times 52 weeks in a
year is quite substantial for a charity. You also lose 10 minutes on a
cd, against cassettes.

Some CD players can play mp3 files. However I have no idea how common that
is with cheaper models. But if some cheap systems can do this it might
allow for far more per disc. Do not the RNIB or some other body provide
something like this? Or is it simply too costly?

Similarly, all the DVD Video machines I have will play CDRs (or DVD Rs) of
mp3 files. You can also get quite a few hours onto DVD videos if you don't
care about the video quality, and blank DVD isn't much more costly than CD
blanks. So might CD/DVD discs of mp3s to be played on DVD Video players be
an option?

Another advantage of DVD video is that the machine does tend to recall
where you got to if you switch off and then on again later. I think one
model of audio CD player does this, but I can't recall what one it is or if
it is expensive. But it is common for DVD video machines.

I would suspect that in time the systems will end up being small computer
based hardware with memory sticks and/or downloads. But as you write, that
is problematic for many people as things are now.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

Hi, yes, the current equipment is a problem. Even washing machines are
becoming a problem due to their touch buttons and displays. What should have
been agreed years ago, is a simple standard interface so all blind people
could plug it in and hear the menus.


Yes, lots of options like dvd players, mp3 players, etc, but we do not want
more time, as we record using volunteers, and need to get it out fast.

many have said that we are going to be no longer needed due to artificial
voicing and computer browsing of news sites. The thing is that there will
always be people who just cannot cope with using computers as i do. Its just
too different from when they were sighted. its as many of us have often
shouted at the radio.. We do not all suddenly read brailed, or get
superhuman other senses when we lose our sight you dingbat! Save us from
stereotyping!

I'm probably one of about half a dozen people in this area of London, who
have lost sight and still fiddle with puters. Most of the rest are just
****ed off and have difficulty in doing day to day stuff. Anyway, this is
off topic.

I do not know of many lone usually female, blind folk with dvd players, and
the rnib will sell you daisy and mp3 players for over 140 notes if you
smile, or loan you one if you subscribe to their library at over sixty quid
a year.


Tesco do a cheap walkman like mp3 cd player.

I am worried though about the cost of blanks. We should not be generating
all this crap. Cassettes do die, but they last a lot of trips on average.

The other often overlooked thing is that the listeners can also send us
messages as well of course. many see us as a visitor which is a rare treat
for many.

I think cos us males snuff it early, our main listener is 80 percent female
and the age on average is 70 to 80 years.
many have more than one disability, making getting out at the mercy of
others.

On audio gear, I tend to use old stuff, cos its easier. On tv, of course we
have a problem as no blind user can access the program guides on set top
boxes or sets. There is one talking one, but its just a set top and costs
best part of 700 pounds.

Better off with a computer.
At least we now have a couple of free screenreaders to break the triopoly of
Jaws, Hal and Window Eyes over prices stuff. They have their place in the
working environment.

Anyway, I'm waffling.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Brian Gaff
wrote:

Hi Brian,

I've been wondering about asking you about issues related to this. Things
like the tendency for modern equipment to have a remote control and
on-screen menus. I suspect that can be awkward for some people. But
cheaper
for makers as they can omit most physical controls from the unit. With a
number of newer items I have, I do wonder how someone with sight problems
would easily use them!

I would be interested in your comments on that. I've put my reactions to
your points below...

CD. A great idea on the surface, and yes, it can be duplicated fast.
Snags. it is use once throw away, and requires all users to have a cd
player which is usable by blind people. This is not as easy as it
sounds, and the costs of the number of listeners times 52 weeks in a
year is quite substantial for a charity. You also lose 10 minutes on a
cd, against cassettes.

Some CD players can play mp3 files. However I have no idea how common that
is with cheaper models. But if some cheap systems can do this it might
allow for far more per disc. Do not the RNIB or some other body provide
something like this? Or is it simply too costly?

Similarly, all the DVD Video machines I have will play CDRs (or DVD Rs) of
mp3 files. You can also get quite a few hours onto DVD videos if you don't
care about the video quality, and blank DVD isn't much more costly than CD
blanks. So might CD/DVD discs of mp3s to be played on DVD Video players be
an option?

Another advantage of DVD video is that the machine does tend to recall
where you got to if you switch off and then on again later. I think one
model of audio CD player does this, but I can't recall what one it is or
if
it is expensive. But it is common for DVD video machines.

I would suspect that in time the systems will end up being small computer
based hardware with memory sticks and/or downloads. But as you write, that
is problematic for many people as things are now.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

Brian Gaff wrote:
I help run the local Talking Newspaper, and as I'm sure many here are
aware, the compact cassette has been the mainstay of the distribution for
many many years.
Its plus points are.
its easy and fast to duplicate.
Its easy to use by the users.
It has hardware bookmarking, by which I mean that if you take it out, it
remembers where it was and can be inserted into any player and start from
that point.
its cheap both in player and in replacement of the cassette itself.
its reusable many many times, and apart from recently, is pretty immune to
post office abuse.

Now we are told its days are numbered, but.. This is artificial. Lots of
people still use them, and yet, the industry seems to have decided to kill
it off.

There seems to be no replacement for our use, without a lot of extra
investment and training of both volunteers and users.

Lets loot at what is out there.

CD. A great idea on the surface, and yes, it can be duplicated fast.
Snags. it is use once throw away, and requires all users to have a cd player
which is usable by blind people. This is not as easy as it sounds, and the
costs of the number of listeners times 52 weeks in a year is quite
substantial for a charity. You also lose 10 minutes on a cd, against
cassettes.

Reusable cds, not viable due to not all players playing them, and the slow
copy times due to the way they work. I assume nobody has perfected a 16
times rewritable recorder copy stack yet? Still the time constraints and
the unknowns of will their player play it are a problem
Minidisc? Going the way of Cassettes. Sony missed the whole point here. We
needed an Amstrad to make it work like a cassette instead of a multi choice
question and answer session to record auntie may.
Ram sticks/sd cards Well, on the face of it, a good idea, but the medium is
still expensive and over long for our needs. No players in mass production
at a low cost save the Boom Box and it means buying everyone a player as
nobody has one. Roberts and others have sd card slots in recent portable
gear though. Some tests with people with diabetic related sight loss show us
that sd cards are just too fiddly for fingers losing their feeling.

The younger folk may be happy, and who knows, some player may be able to add
a bookmark at some point, who knows? However, sd cards will be lost, ram
sticks pinched and smashed in the mail.

Direct internet supply. This has the great advantage of being instant. No
copying, no post office. Instant news. Snag is, that the only talking usable
player is the Orion and its badge engineered clones that are wireless or
cabled broadband devices. Very few of our users have even got a computer, so
why would they want to pay for broadband just for us? Well there are quite a
few services on it now, but we still come back to cost and training, and
the loss of portability of the material without a computer and the know how
to copy the content to an I pod or similar.


Coould you simply host an audio file - people could either download it
to their mp3 player, burn it to CD, play it on their computer etc?
Vaguely interesting to note that Talking Newspapers provide files:

http://www.tnauk.org.uk/examples/guardian.html

at 45 minutes each - old habits die hard :-)

Lastly, and this is a development from ram sticks, some tns are using ipod
like mp3 players, very cheap ones, to distribute the newspaper, which means
that they need headphones or an amplifier.
Have I missed any?
The snag here is that we are talking about probably one of the least well
off groups in the disability sector here. Very unlikely to have jobs or
savings, and often on income support, so any solution has to be cheap.


Do you know how many have/use computers?

Cassettes are the answer for many, still and unless some new format comes
along which is bought into as much as this was, its hard to avoid the fact
that in around 2 to five years we will have to use some other mode of
distribution.
Any comments?


You could perhaps try the hosted audio file? It's one of those 'don't
know until you try'.

Rob

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

On Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:56:21 -0000, Brian Gaff
wrote:



Yes, lots of options like dvd players, mp3 players, etc, but we do not
want
more time, as we record using volunteers, and need to get it out fast.


I know that I'm really late on this one but my father is probably one of
your target audience as he has very little sight left. He seems equally
comfortable with both CD's and cassettes but he is not interested at all
in computers.

I can understand some of your issues with CD's but I don't think that cost
should be one of them though - you can buy blank CD's in quantity for
under 10p each which is less than it would cost to post a reusable
CD/cassette back to you. It simply doesn't make sense to re-use CD's when
they are that cheap. I know that the quality of a 10p CD won't be as good
as a Taiyo Yuden CD but they're as good as any other brand that you can
buy.

There are also quite a few CD players with a resume feature which will
work provided you keep the same disc in the player. It might be worth
compiling a list of recommended CD players for your users with the
features that they need. Even without this resume feature you can still
place up to 99 track markers on a CD so you could almost certainly treat
each story as a single track.

Cheers

James.

--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

It costs nothing to post anything as its articles for the blind free post so
you will see it is a significant cost if you multiply it up for 52 weeks and
140 units per week.

Brian
"James Perrett" wrote in message
c.uk...
On Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:56:21 -0000, Brian Gaff
wrote:



Yes, lots of options like dvd players, mp3 players, etc, but we do not
want
more time, as we record using volunteers, and need to get it out fast.


I know that I'm really late on this one but my father is probably one of
your target audience as he has very little sight left. He seems equally
comfortable with both CD's and cassettes but he is not interested at all
in computers.

I can understand some of your issues with CD's but I don't think that cost
should be one of them though - you can buy blank CD's in quantity for
under 10p each which is less than it would cost to post a reusable
CD/cassette back to you. It simply doesn't make sense to re-use CD's when
they are that cheap. I know that the quality of a 10p CD won't be as good
as a Taiyo Yuden CD but they're as good as any other brand that you can
buy.

There are also quite a few CD players with a resume feature which will
work provided you keep the same disc in the player. It might be worth
compiling a list of recommended CD players for your users with the
features that they need. Even without this resume feature you can still
place up to 99 track markers on a CD so you could almost certainly treat
each story as a single track.

Cheers

James.

--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

Firstly, there is no cost of postage as articles for the blind is free. Also
if we went to digital we would ned an investment in.

A digital recording system usable by all.
A copying tower
A problem is that unless you go mp3, you only get 80 mins on a cd, and we
get 90 on a tape. Tapes are reusable, and if you multiply 140 times the
number of weeks in a year, even at ten pence its a lot of money and a lot of
completely useless bits of plastic that clutter up the environment.

You need a reusable format which can be copied fast.
it has to be reliable. One of the problems experienced by tns using cds is
that some simply fail. Very few tapes fail as long as you are careful that
you do not send out badly damaged ones.


Brian
"James Perrett" wrote in message
c.uk...
On Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:56:21 -0000, Brian Gaff
wrote:



Yes, lots of options like dvd players, mp3 players, etc, but we do not
want
more time, as we record using volunteers, and need to get it out fast.


I know that I'm really late on this one but my father is probably one of
your target audience as he has very little sight left. He seems equally
comfortable with both CD's and cassettes but he is not interested at all
in computers.

I can understand some of your issues with CD's but I don't think that cost
should be one of them though - you can buy blank CD's in quantity for
under 10p each which is less than it would cost to post a reusable
CD/cassette back to you. It simply doesn't make sense to re-use CD's when
they are that cheap. I know that the quality of a 10p CD won't be as good
as a Taiyo Yuden CD but they're as good as any other brand that you can
buy.

There are also quite a few CD players with a resume feature which will
work provided you keep the same disc in the player. It might be worth
compiling a list of recommended CD players for your users with the
features that they need. Even without this resume feature you can still
place up to 99 track markers on a CD so you could almost certainly treat
each story as a single track.

Cheers

James.

--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

In article , Brian Gaff
wrote:
Firstly, there is no cost of postage as articles for the blind is free.
Also if we went to digital we would ned an investment in.

TBH Brian, as I read your list of requirements I was reminded of the
saying, "The best is the enemy of the good." In this case that means that
if you are determined to wait for a system that meets *all* your
requirements then you have to settle down to many years (perhaps infinite)
before one that ticks all your boxes arrives. So you may have to compromise
if you actually want a system that works for as many people as possible in
a reasonable timescalke.

A digital recording system usable by all.

I assume here you mean *playback* by 'as many users as feasible'. Not that
they can all record.

A copying tower

That presimably isn't a cost problem as once installed you could use the
same system for many years. I guess even a decent computer that isn't
specialised for the task will let you do CDs at the rate of one ever few
mins. Bulk copiers will be faster and automated.


A problem is that unless you go mp3, you only get 80 mins on a cd, and
we get 90 on a tape.

Is that a really serious problem? Such that if it were the only factor
you'd refuse to change to CD?

Tapes are reusable,

So you could use CDRW instead of CDR. Like tape they'd cost more per disc,
but would be reusable. The drawback is probably reduced compatability
across all CD players. cf below. Plus they also tend to take longer per
disc to write.


You need a reusable format which can be copied fast. it has to be
reliable. One of the problems experienced by tns using cds is that some
simply fail. Very few tapes fail as long as you are careful that you do
not send out badly damaged ones.

My experience with CDR/CDRW is that very few *discs* 'fail' if you are
burning them with a decent writer/recorder. However the problem in my
experience is that the optical properties of a disk depend on *both* the
choice and use of writer *and* the brand of disc. And that some players can
play discs which others can't.

So in my case, if I use a particular writer at a particular speed, the TDK
CDRs it writes will play in CD player 'A' but not 'B'. Whereas the TDK
CDRWs play in 'B' but not 'A'. Similarly variations for other brands, etc.
But most *modern* CD players seem happier to play various brands, etc. My
'A' and 'B' players above are some years old.

I think your key problem is to identify a specific set of CD *players* that
have the features you decide you need. These would include compatability
with your specific choice of brand/type of CDR(W) (and writer) and perhaps
the 'resume' facility. (Which I am less confident than James is common for
CD players.)

I suspect you'd be better off taking James' suggestion of just putting up
to 99 track markers on the CD. It is trivially easy to divide recordings
like that. If you then can't find a player that lets a user know which
track they are on, I guess you could announce track number at the start of
some tracks to aid restarting.

The problem with wanting any brand of disc to play in any device is similar
to wanting mp3 and 'resume'. You end up making the player cost more or be
more complex to use, or end up with a class of 'approved' players that has
few - or no! - members.

You can certainly use mp3, and even use DVDR(W) as carriers. They'd give
you much longer playing times. But at the expense to the end-user of a more
complex and costly player. Although DVD players do tend to handle 'resume'
better for video I'm not sure how many do for LPCM or mp3 audio.

As the Editor said, "I don't want it good, I want it Thursday". :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:
In article , Brian Gaff


A problem is that unless you go mp3, you only get 80 mins on a cd, and
we get 90 on a tape.

Is that a really serious problem? Such that if it were the only factor
you'd refuse to change to CD?

Actually, it occurs to me to point out that - if you only require mono -
then you can get 2 x 80 mins on an audio CD. Provided users have a balance
control that can be adjusted to zero one channel gain, or you provide a
switchbox. IIRC some releases of long operas did this some years ago. But
I appreciate doing this does perhaps pose problems.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Gripe about technology for its own sake.
 

On Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:39:20 -0000, Brian Gaff
wrote:

Firstly, there is no cost of postage as articles for the blind is free.
Also
if we went to digital we would ned an investment in.

A digital recording system usable by all.

What do you use at the moment? Does it never go wrong and require
maintenance?

At its simplest you could use an audio CD recorder although a computer
based system would be more versatile and allow you to edit more easily.

A copying tower

Again, your existing copying system had to be bought at some point and a
copying tower (or automated feeder to a single drive) is unlikely to be
any more expensive than replacing your existing system.

A problem is that unless you go mp3, you only get 80 mins on a cd, and we
get 90 on a tape. Tapes are reusable, and if you multiply 140 times the
number of weeks in a year, even at ten pence its a lot of money and a
lot of
completely useless bits of plastic that clutter up the environment.


I find it difficult to understand how a 10 minute difference can be a show
stopper.

You need a reusable format which can be copied fast.
it has to be reliable. One of the problems experienced by tns using cds
is
that some simply fail. Very few tapes fail as long as you are careful
that
you do not send out badly damaged ones.

Oddly enough I do short runs of CD's (between 10 and 100 at a time) for
people. I have rarely had any problems with bad CD's. Just about all the
returns have been down to the customer's CD player not liking CD-R's. I
used to do cassette duplication but I've had precisely one order for
cassettes in the last 8 years (even though the service is still listed on
my website). If I was reusing cassettes I would want to make sure that the
same cassette always went to the same customer as cassette machines can
easily damage tapes in subtle ways that you don't notice until you play
the tape on a different machine.

I would suggest that you need a list of recommended players if you go to
CD's. I had a Panasonic portable that can be operated by touch easily, it
plays mp3 CD's and it has a resume feature that works on both normal CD's
and mp3's.

Another thought is to look at mp3 players - your users would simply send
you a player which could be loaded up with the latest edition. I suspect
that a typical mp3 player might be a little fiddly to use but it would be
sensible for someone to bring out a player with decent sized buttons.

Cheers

James.

--
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