[Dtb-talk] NLS Digital Players

Tue Feb 16 05:50:12 UTC 2010

No, the erasure was almost certainly not deliberate.

 The cassette record lock out tabs hadnt until then been removed because
when everybody previously had a NLS player provided, there was no real 
problem
as the players couldnt erase or record.

But when clients then had to use their own cassette machine, it was very 
easy to inadvertently
press record instead of play and erase narration.

Only after many reports of missing narration came back did library staff 
take retrospective action
 and physically remove tabs from all  existing and future client titles. 
Quite a task.

Tim Gillett
Audio/Electronics Technician
Perth, Western Australia

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Flint Million" <fmillion at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] NLS Digital Players

> LOL, they had tapes with blank recorded-over spots? I'd assume they
> kicked out that little notch on the tapes that prevents most units
> from recording?... So that means either people were deliberately
> defeating that, or had recorders which didn't have the mechanical
> stopper on the record button that's hooked to that little hole in the
> cassette.
>
> In the US, many recording units were made that could record to NLS
> format tapes (Handi-Cassette comes to mind). But it would have bee a
> deliberate effort to record over an NLS book, due to this simple but
> generally effective write protection scheme on old cassettes. (Yeah,
> you can defeat it with a piece of Scotch tape, but again, that counts
> as deliberate effort. lol)
>
> Either way, I'm sure if one REALLY wanted to, one could erase a
> cartridge, probably through some SCSI commands of some sort. (If
> anyone remembers the Zip drive, you could write-protect the disk in
> software, rather than a physical hardware switch. Something similar is
> probably at work here.) But again, it'd require deliberate effort and
> would not be done by accident by any random person, and either way it
> sounds like they just dump and reload carts every time they come back
> to the library anyway.
>
> Mike, I also am an audiophile, and most of my ripped CD collection is
> stored in FLAC on my computer, and then transcoded to something else
> (MP3 or OGG or whatever) when I want to put it on to a portable
> device. I won't settle for less than 192kbit MP3 or Q5 OGG. Still, CDs
> serve mostly as a transient medium to transport content around. I
> rarely ever touch a standard audio CD player anymore. lol
>
> fm
>
>
> On 2/15/10, Greg Kearney <gkearney at gmail.com> wrote:
>> While the NLS does write protect the cartridges it is possible I guess to
>> still erase them given the right kind of computer setup. We have yet to 
>> have
>> anyone accidentally erase a cartridge and even if they were to do so it
>> would impact only that user as the cartridges as assigned to a particular
>> user and are erased and reloaded each time they come back to us.
>>
>> Gregory Kearney
>> Manager - Accessible Media
>> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
>> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
>> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>>
>> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
>> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
>> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
>> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
>> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>>
>> On 16/02/2010, at 8:11 AM, Tim Gillett wrote:
>>
>>> Some of you have been talking about reloading thumbdrives with different
>>> files
>>> but as David Andrews reminded us, the NLS is not in that business.
>>>
>>> One of the benefits of providing a special player for clients is 
>>> precisely
>>> that
>>> you can make it incapable of erasing / rewriting the cartridge's files.
>>>
>>> Here's a cautionary tale:
>>>
>>> Many years ago the Association For the Blind of
>>> Western Australia in its infinite wisdom decided to stop supplying 
>>> special
>>> NLS type cassette tape players - or any tape players - to its clients.
>>>
>>> This move came back to bite them.
>>> ABWA staff began to get complaints from clients of titles with whole
>>> sections blank.
>>> With the record capable cassette machines that clients were now forced 
>>> to
>>> use,
>>> some clients were accidentally pressing the record button instead of 
>>> play,
>>>
>>> and at random points through the title.
>>>
>>> ABWA had a problem on its hands, all of its own making, that it had 
>>> never
>>> anticipated.
>>>
>>> I assume that like the old analog players the new NLS players
>>> will similarly be incapable of erasing/formatting cartridges,
>>> thereby protecting all patrons from inadvertently mutilated titles!
>>>
>>>
>>> Tim Gillett
>>> Audio/Electronics Technician
>>> Perth, Western Australia
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
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