Hi Richard,
Suppose the speech is sampled at 22kHz, with 8 bit samples.
That means 22k bytes per second.
Suppose the speech is at 160 words per minute.
That means 8/3 words per second, or about 16 bytes per second.
So the expansion by speaking is well over 1000 times.
Suppose that the audio file is compressed by a factor of 10.
The audio is still over 100 times the size of the text file.
Now when the student wants to search for something in the middle
of the text file, they can can get to it immediately, whereas
they might have to listen through half the audio file.
So why is this the future?
Surely it's better to have the speech generated on demand.
Also, with a text reader like WordAloud, you can step through
the text backwards and forwards: a word, sentence, paragraph,
or section at a time. And you can edit the text and remove
scanning errors.
QED - I rest my case.
John
P.S. You can download WordAloud from www.wordaloud.co.uk for free.
--
In message <[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask] writes:
>The latest version of Kurzweil 1000 is out and it finally makes sense to
>purchase it. Rather than a watered down K-3000, the new version 6 offers a
>wide range of features for visually impaired individuals as well as the
>blind. But the feature that has me excited is it's ability to scan a
>document, have it read by the Kurzweil voices and then save the file in an
>MP3 format. The MP3 format allows the audio file to be compressed by a
>factor of 10. Now students can create their own CD based recordings of
>literary textbooks and class handouts. This is the future.
>ASU has been providing CD based audio MP3 files, rather than 4 track tape
>recordings, this year. The students love it. Note: Many textbooks will
>need additional editing to describe graphs, diagrams, pictures, scientific
>notation, etc.
>
>
>http://www.kurzweiledu.com/k1000features.html
>8. MP3 File Creation
>You can now use the Kurzweil 1000 to create MP3 files. The reading voice,
>and the various settings that apply to the reading voice, are used to
>generate one or more MP3 files. You can choose to create an MP3 file for a
>selection, for a group of pages, or for an entire document.
>
>Richard Jones
>Assistant Director
>Disability Resources for Students
>Arizona State University, Main
>480-965-6045
>
>"Our first belief is that "disability" is a rational concept. It does not
>reside within the individual. Our second belief is that electronic
>technology can alter environments in such a manner as to allow people who
>have various functional deficits to operate without any disability what so
>ever." Richard Reed, CCD Newsletter, Fall 1988, v (2), EDUCOM Software
>Initiative, 1989.
--
Access the word, access the world! -- Try our WordAloud software!!
John Nissen, Cloudworld Ltd., Chiswick, London
Tel: +44 (0) 845 458 3944 (local rate in the UK)
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8742 8715
Web: http://www.cloudworld.co.uk
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