[nfb-talk] Bard

John G. Heim jheim at math.wisc.edu
Wed Jul 14 15:05:24 UTC 2010


No, you didn't misunderstand my question. I just didn't think about the 
restrictions.  Well, that's kind of a bummer though. I was thinking of 
seeing if I could write a linux program to play a book downloaded from bard. 
I used to sort of do that kind of thing for a living. I worked for a company 
that wrote software for medical scanners and part of my job was to reverse 
engineer image file formats. There is nothing illegal about taking a data 
file and writing a program to read it. You can legally write an mp3 decoder 
but you can't write an mp3 encoder.  But there might be special laws 
regarding bard books. So maybe I'd better not write an open source linux 
bard player. It probably couldn't be done anyway. Most likely, the content 
is encrypted.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Bard


> John,
>
> Maybe I am misunderstanding your question, but the Victor Reader Stream, 
> the BookSense from GW Micro, and the BookPort Plus from the American 
> Printing
> House for the Blind can all play BARD books, and I think the Plex-Talker 
> from IRTI can also do it.  It is unlikely that note-takers will be able to 
> play audio NLS books
> because NLS is shying away from players that have a software component 
> that could be compromised by someone seeking to decode books.  Of course, 
> the
> above players all have software components, but the systems are 
> proprietary and users don't have the ability to easily load software on 
> these devices that could be
> used to tap into the logic associated with decoding the audio on these 
> books.  Web Braille books which will become part of BARD can be played on 
> Note-Takers,
> though, since it is felt that the translation to grade two braille is an 
> effective obstacle to making such books available to the public.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> On Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:42:08 -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>
>>Can you buy a commercial player for the books from bard? I have 2 cassette
>>book players in addition to the one the library sent me. But I don't have
>>any way to play a book downloaded from the bard site except on the player
>>they sent me.
>
>>I would think that the newer braille notetakers will be able to play books
>>from bard. I own a Pac Mate and it can recognize a book downloaded from 
>>bard
>>but it cannot play it.
>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Wm. Ritchhart" <william.ritchhart at sbcglobal.net>
>>To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:04 PM
>>Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Bard
>
>
>>>I really like the new digital talking book player.  I do wish it was 
>>>still
>>> smaller and lighter.  With all my swimming gear, lunch, back-up cane and
>>> everything else I have in my gym bag; it is still too heavy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
>>> On
>>> Behalf Of Steve Johnson
>>> Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 8:22 PM
>>> To: 'NFB Talk Mailing List'
>>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Bard
>>>
>>> John, I have not tried one myself yet, so this is good to know.  Thanks,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
>>> On
>>> Behalf Of John G. Heim
>>> Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 3:26 PM
>>> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>> Subject: [nfb-talk] Bard
>>>
>>> Man, I just got one of those new digital book players from the National
>>> Library Service.  You might wonder why a computer nerd like myself took 
>>> so
>>> long to ask for one of those things. Well, I guess mostly the reason is
>>> that
>>> I have 2 tape players that I bought myself plus the one from NLS. So now 
>>> I
>>> have to use the player from the NLS all of the time.
>>>
>>> But holy cow, is this thing nice. I downloaded a book and put it on a 
>>> USB
>>> thumb drive and was listening to a book amybe 3 minutes after getting
>>> started. And navigation within the book is very nice.
>>>
>>> Your tax dollars at work.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>
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