[Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question

Mon May 17 09:47:15 UTC 2010

Ray - In fact we are working on a new web site, which will have a password protected area for registered clients and which will, in time, be able to offer direct downloads, especially for periodicals. Hopefully before the year ends but deadlines seem to be slippery things when dealing with technical issues. But we're working on it.
 Fr. John R. Sheehan, SJ
Chairman

Xavier Society for the Blind
154 East 23rd St
New York, NY 10010
(212) 473-7800
Help us raise money for the Xavier Society for the Blind just by searching the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - www.goodsearch.com - powered by Yahoo! Free for you - and money for us! Thank you.

________________________________
From: Ray Foret Jr <rforetjr at comcast.net>
To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sun, May 16, 2010 11:00:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question

Father is absolutely correct.  One of the primary reasons that XSB chose not to use the protected 3GP format for their audio recordings is the tremendous expense.  They would, as I understand it, have had to pay well upwards of $1000.00 or more to buy in to the licensing for the format; thus, their choice to use unprotected .mp3 CD's.  All and all, a wise choice.  It sure would be nice if they would be able to offer their materials for download; but, here again, there is most likely some expense involved.  They'd have to keep a data base of which subscribers are registered to legitimately receive their downloaded audio materials.  You must remember, they are a volunteer organization, and, while I'm sure they'd love to do that, they're constrained by what they can reasonably afford to pay for.  Protected 3GP is not one of those things.

Sincerely,
The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!!!

Now a proud Mac user!!!!!

e-mail:
rforetjr at comcast dot net
skype:
barefootedray

On May 16, 2010, at 6:09 AM, Fr. John Sheehan wrote:

> You have to remember that NLS is governed by the publishers. As long as their material is in a proprietary format, they can issue the materials without worrying about copyright. Braille is a proprietary format - and when they went to audio, NLS devised its own unique system first for tape, now digital. If they open it up for wider use, they will be required to get individual copyright permission for each work, or pay. Either would cripple the service. But in terms of "sharing" with more popular devices, they don't really have much choice. Remember how the publishers and then authors reacted when the Kindle 2 was released with its text to speech feature? Same issue. 
> Fr. John R. Sheehan, SJ
> Chairman
> 
> 
> Xavier Society for the Blind
> 154 East 23rd St
> New York, NY 10010
> (212) 473-7800
> Help us raise money for the Xavier Society for the Blind just by searching the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - www.goodsearch.com - powered by Yahoo! Free for you - and money for us! Thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Lynn Evans <evans-lynn at comcast.net>
> To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 2:46:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
> 
> Just being a smart ass here:
> 
> With all the emails flying back and forth here, we haven't yet convinced NLS 
> to release their proprietary format?
> 
> hmmmmm
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Flint Million" <fmillion at gmail.com>
> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 1:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
> 
> 
> I think another possible issue is that the iPod has an AAC/MP3 decoder
> in hardware, but not an AMR-WB+ decoder. I may be completely wrong on
> that since the iPhone is probably using some kind of AMR audio for the
> phone component, but I have never read any specs on it. Also it'd  be
> logical that the iPod touch would lack such a decoder even if one is
> in the iPhone. (And it could also be that the iPhone's decoder, if
> any, is part of the GSM hardware itself and not part of the media
> playback chipset.) This would mean we'd be reduced to decoding the
> book content in software, which would potentially reduce battery life.
> One of the selling points of the iPod touch is its seriously long
> playback time - they rate it at about 30 hours for music, which
> matches our big tabletop NLS players - but they achieve this by doing
> as much as they can in hardware using specialized very-low-power
> chips. Anything done in software on the device eats the battery life
> away, because the main processor, while efficient, can't compete with
> a specialized low-power decoding chip for media content.
> 
> And of course, the issue still stands with how to get the book content
> on to the device. I may be wrong, but I think Apple disapproves of
> methods of loading content that involve simple drag-and-drop. All of
> the apps I've seen available on the app store for content consumption
> require you to either use WebDAV or FTP or a traditional web server
> style upload mechanism. This adds yet another complexity to the
> process. Apple's App Store policies seem to include some unwritten
> rules about things like this (I'm sure some have heard the stories of
> apps being rejected for no apparent reason), so this is just another
> thing to worry about.
> 
> FM
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:
>> Besides, multi-use devices do each of their functions with equal 
>> mediocrity!
>> 
>> Mike
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Burke, Dan (DSS)" <burke at mso.umt.edu>
>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:35 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>> 
>> 
>>> It's logical - everybody is searching for a single multi-use device. I
>>> would love to be able to use my smart phone to read Daisy and NLS.
>>> 
>>> But htis is not a world that always makes sense, is it?
>>> (grin)
>>> Dan
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Dan Burke
>>> Assistant Director/Assistive Technology Coordinator
>>> 
>>> Disability Services for Studentstss
>>> The University of Montana
>>> Emma B. Lommasson Center 154
>>> Missoula, MT 59812
>>> 
>>> 406.24.4424
>>> 406.243.5330 FAX
>>> 
>>> www.umt.edu/disability
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>>> On Behalf Of Eric SS
>>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 4:21 AM
>>> To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>> 
>>> I would think anyone who currently uses one of the dedicated NLS-capable
>>> devices and has an Iphone/Touch/Pad, would be very happy to be able to
>>> use
>>> just one device. I know a couple of folks who don't use the NLS digital
>>> service because they do not want to deal with another device, but would
>>> become enthusiastic users if they could listen on their Iphone, etc.
>>> 
>>> Eric SS
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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