[nabs-l] VR stream pros and cons

[Steve Jacobson]

Ashley,

Given the scope of your questions and the fact that you are getting a Stream, it might be worth your time to get the 
manual ahead of time and start reading it to get your questions answered.  In my household, we have both a VR Stream 
and a BookSense, and I would be hard pressed to give either of them up.  Recently I had to get a book on cassette 
because it was not available in digital format, and it just seemed so inconvenient to have to deal with cassettes again.  
Of course, one will have to deal with cassettes some for a good while because some books may only be available that 
way, but one very quickly gets spoiled by having multiple digital talking books available right there in the Stream or the 
BookSense.

The stream records pretty well.  I would not say that it records as well as some of the little recorders that are available 
from companies like Olympus, but I think you would find its ability to record to be more than adequate for lectures and 
voice notes.  You can transfer them to a PC using the Humanware Companion program.

Unfortunately, what you can search for or navigate to is not solely a function of the Stream but how each book is 
prepared.  If a book has actual text associated with it, you can search for text.  If a DAISY book has the pages indexed, 
you can move page by page.  However, NLS books do not support page navigation in general, so you cannot navigate 
by page on those books.  You can move around, even on NLS books, by various time units which helps.

You can play MP3 music files and some other formats as well, but I have not done much with play lists.

In short, there is a good bit to learn to use any device of this type, but I think you are going to find your Stream very 
useful.  Good luck!

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson  

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:47:20 -0500, bookwormahb at earthlink.net wrote:

>Hi All,

>I'm getting a VR stream.  I'd like to hear from users of it about your experiences and what it does.  What do you use it 
for?  I know you can download digital talking books; now I use the traditional cassettes.  What's the site to download 
books?  

>What navigation capabilities does it have?  Can you search by words?  I know on the VR Wave you can go to 
bookmarks as well as chapters and pages.  

>If you record stuff can you transfer it to your computer?  What functions does the MP3 player portion have?  Can you 
create playlists?  Can you jump to certain songs by name or singer like with regular mp3 players?  

>What are some of the cons of it?
>I will likely use it for recording notes such as phone numbers and lists.  I will also use the books feature to download 
books from RFB and digital talking books.

>Thanks.
>Ashley
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