[Electronics-Talk] Victor Stream 3

[rixmix2009 at gmail.com]

Hello friends
This has been a pretty long thread. So I hope it is alright, but I deleted the previous text from earlier message.
It will be one year next month since the Victor Reader Stream 3 was released.
I had immediate disappointments  with the device. But 2 updates to the unit did improve it. While there are still some significant things that I hope will be addressed, I do think the updates did address the worst problems that I was encountering. And I am personally giving Humanware the benefit of the doubt and not choosing to pile on any more big criticism. 

For me, I needed to recognize that I have to practice due diligence, and read all of the available documentation and work on my own practice in using the Stream 3.
I've had some good help over the past year from Customer Support.
One thing that was told to me at one time was this. When we encounter a particular bug on the Stream 3, it really is most helpful to them of the users will fill out a Bug Report. Read more below how to find that.

I have purchased now all 3 of the generations of the Victor Reader plus the Trek. 

Probably the much louder speaker volume, and the generally more comfortable feel of the unit are among the finest attributes of the device. Having USB 3 for charging hopefully will eliminate the long known problems like I had multiple times with the microSD connection. If you have not had those problems, good for you.  I think that it also does charge up quicker.

The Stream 3 does have a significantly different operation structure. Some of the navigation has a different sequence, and so on.
The speed for downloading is quite a bit faster thatn my other Streams and the Trek. So, I rather now prefer it for my podcast and BARD books subscriptions. It also announces titles of downloads as it completes them. I really could care less if the Stream 3 ever has capability for Audible books, although I know that many will not agree. That audible Sync on the Stream 2 works for me, along with the phone or tablet app. 

I'm not very fond of the new TTS voices. Although you now can choose several rather than just the two. For me, I will find that the text to speech reading will have some glitches. There is more to say about that. But enough for now. In some ways, I still prefer the TTS voices on the earlier streams.

The Bluetooth does work well. And like the Trek, as long as you turn on your Bluetooth ear piece  ON in advance, I find that it connects just fine.
Internet Radio has been a bug a boo for me using the Stream 3 since I got it. It did improve somewhat with the latest upgrade. 

Humanware also placed the Tune in app as an alternative on the device. I messed around with the Tune in on the Stream 3 quite a bit. It is much better than the internet radio on the stream for connectivity. 
to some extent. But it is not perfect either. 
If a person want to subscribe to the premium tune in with an account, there is a huge amount of content that way.  Around ten dollars a month. 
If you are a baseball fan, the channel mlb on tune in has a 24/7 broadcast of classic games. 
The premium channels do boast about commercial free content. And this is pretty good, but I can't say it is all that great once the novelty wears off. They basically play live content and when it is time for commercial break they play content for earlier that day.
Getting the premium Tune in activation does take a bit of a bit of work between tune in and your device. I made notes on what I finally did to accomplish it if anyone wants to know.
You do NOT need to have a Premium account. The free one works, too. But I think that perhaps you do need to create an online account in order to use Tunein.

NOW, this is the best part. Save this information, friends.
I am going to post below some solid information that I got from Humanware  Support last year. And included is the web address for Support for the Stream 3. Plus, there is a user group email group, which I did not know about.
I wish that the Humanware support made it more obvious how to get this. But as I said above, Customer Support guided me there. And I am grateful.
Good luck.
Rik James

Victor Reader Stream 3 support page:
https://support.humanware.com/en-usa/support/victor_reader_stream_3

This page Contains links to toe following:
Documentation
Software
Troubleshooting
Frequently Asked Questions
Stream 3 Bug Report Form
Reformatting SD Card in exFAT