[Dtb-talk] bookshare vs. nls

Sun Mar 14 17:56:20 UTC 2010

Correct: This was because the first players distributed were commercial 
units available from GE.

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Gillett" <tim.gillett at optusnet.com.au>
To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] bookshare vs. nls

> Mike,
>
> To my knowledge when NLS first started using the cassette  it recorded 
> them
> at half speed but with only two tracks. The four tracks were a later 
> development .
>
> Tim
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Gilmore" <m_b_gilmore at yahoo.com>
> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 12:15 AM
> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] bookshare vs. nls
>
>
>> Don't get me wrong: I think NLS does a great job. In fact, there's a 
>> couple of narrators who do a fantastic job. Merwin Smith is at the top of 
>> my list; he's the reason I got into Robert Ludlum (plus Ludlum's a great 
>> writer.) I also enjoy Bob Askey and David Hartley-Margolin (is it me or 
>> does DHM sound similar to Bob Askey on recordings recorded circa 2002 and 
>> forward? DHM sounds younger on Without Remorse by Clancy [1993 recording] 
>> and similar to Bob Askey on Clancy's Red Rabbit [2002].) Is there any 
>> place where we can read short biographies of these gentlemen or other 
>> favorite narrators? Is Merwin Smith still alive and recording?
>> (As a side note, I must say that I ordered a book that was narrated by 
>> another narrator recently. I found out Merwin Smith had done it 
>> originally twenty some-odd years ago and this was a reissue. Smith's 
>> recording is still available. Had i known, I would've ordered it because 
>> the reissued book by a new narrator ruined the book. Although, the guy 
>> did do a good job on a Jack Higgins novel and was all right on an Agatha 
>> Christie novel.) How does NLS get its narrators like DHM, Bob Askey, 
>> Merwin Smith, etc.? Are these folks retired or what? How much are they 
>> payed? (I ask because I had someone back in my college days tell me that 
>> the folks that read these books on tape are prisoners. That would make 
>> sense because prisoners have a lot of time on their hands; however, your 
>> average inmate won't be able to be dramatic and do accents and voices and 
>> all that good stuff. Plus, I doubt sophisticated recording equipment is 
>> brought into the cell or there's a studio at
>> the prison.) I also love how we never hear them turn a page or pause when 
>> flipping the page.
>>
>> As far as commercial audio, I noticed NLS was listing titles and I always 
>> like to see who the narrator was. I remember Anne Haish (sorry for the 
>> misspelling) and Carolyn McCormick (better known as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet 
>> on Law & Order or as Minuet, the holodeck distraction of Riker in the 
>> STTNG episode 1001001) narrated a couple and I was surprised. I also 
>> noticed that a couple of NLS recordings are taped at the slow speed; 
>> however, instead of four sides per cassette, it's two but at the slower 
>> speed. So, side 3 and 4 are cassette two, so on and so forth. I remember 
>> being surprised and was wondering what is up with this.
>>
>> The only problem withe commercial audio books is the book is severely 
>> edited (which is why NLS rocks because you get the full book.) The Star 
>> Trek commercial audio is cool because you've got sound effects and the 
>> actors reading the book; but, a lot of stuff gets cut out and it is a 
>> trip hering one actor try to imitate the rest of his or her cast mates 
>> (unless it's Scotty doing an STTNG book trying to do Data--you can tell 
>> he'd never seen the show because he does Data like a robot, and, as we 
>> all know, he is an android.) When did the entire book start to be put out 
>> on commercial audio instead of an edited version?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> --- On Thu, 3/11/10, Flint Million <fmillion at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Flint Million <fmillion at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] bookshare vs. nls
>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Date: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 5:27 PM
>>
>>
>> I forgot to mention that NLS is now getting permission to simply adapt
>> existing commercial audiobooks, which is actually a nice thing for us
>> blind folks. They take the commercial CD book, encrypt it and insert
>> DAISY markers, and distribute it to us. Saves them the effort of the
>> volunteer reading, which is really nice. And in some cases, commercial
>> books are already nicely arranged for them (e.g. each CD track is one
>> chapter)
>>
>> FM
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 4:25 PM, Flint Million <fmillion at gmail.com> 
>> wrote:
>>> There does not seem to be much rhyme or reason to how NLS is deciding
>>> which books to convert to digital format. The only thing they've said
>>> about this in their documents is as follows:
>>>
>>> Q: Why are some books from a series missing? Why are some magazine
>>> issues missing?
>>> A: Production schedules can cause inadvertent delays.
>>>
>>> Pretty vague, eh?
>>>
>>> In either case, Bookshare tends to be able to expand their library
>>> faster because they're not doing real human readings of the books.
>>> Their content comes from volunteers who scan or convert materials into
>>> text format. then they simply DAISY-ify them and throw them up on the
>>> site. In contrast, NLS must have a volunteer reader read the content
>>> into digital form (or convert the existing cassette version), then
>>> have someone scan through the recording to insert all of the DAISY
>>> navigation points. It can be quite a laborious process. Also, it does
>>> seem that Bookshare has a lot more of a "blanket" copyright exemption
>>> in place, while NLS titles announce "with the permission of the
>>> copyright holder". Maybe this also causes NLS delays, at least in
>>> getting new titles produced. As for why they have only spanish
>>> versions of some books, that's just their quirky schedule at work, but
>>> it does mean it's likely that the english version will be soon to
>>> follow, hopefully.
>>>
>>> FM
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Mike Gilmore <m_b_gilmore at yahoo.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> I've been browsing bookshare's list of books. I've liked that it and 
>>>> NLS have a lot of the same stuff; however, I was also impressed that it 
>>>> has books that NLS does not. For example, there are two Agatha Christie 
>>>> books that bookshare has that NLS does not. Actually, one of the books 
>>>> NLS does have but it's in Spanish, which is kind of odd considering 
>>>> that Agatha Christie is a British author and they have pretty much all 
>>>> of her other stuff in English except for the title I'm talking about 
>>>> (it's a Poirot book.) So, why put all of the Poirot books in English 
>>>> recordings except for one and put that in Spanish? Thank goodness for 
>>>> bookshare for those of us who want to read all of the books or series 
>>>> by a particular author!
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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