Books on disk

valhalla360 wrote:

toedtoes wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

toedtoes wrote:
Because not everybody has or wants a phone that can hold a bunch of media. Or the phone is filled with documents and/or music and/or photos and there isn't any extra room for books.

An epub file is pretty small. If that eats up the last of your data on the phone, you already need to clean things up.

But if you just want to be obstinate about it, get a $25 burner phone to leave in the truck as your book reader.

What's the difference between using an mp3 player versus a burner phone???

The OP is happy with the mp3 player solution. He is satisfied it will work well for them.

Why call him obstinate? Why suggest getting a burner phone to use as an mp3 player?

I was referring to your comment not the OP.

The OP's initial post did not indicate he was happy with an mp3 player but that he was accustomed to CD players but was looking at alternatives.

If you refuse to use new technology without reason, that's being obstinate.

To your last question: A burner phone makes it easy to add new media, since it will have wifi, you can download media directly to the phone. A cheap outdated mp3 player, will require you to download it to your computer and then using a cord, copy it to the mp3 player...When you can get a perfectly serviceable burner phone for $25, why muck about with old technology?

No one is refusing anything. I offered a suggestion that fit the OP's requirements. It's for him to decide what he prefers to go with. Just because YOU choose to do things a certain way doesn't make other ways wrong.

You asked why anyone would choose an mp3 player over using their phone - folks gave you reasons. Your refusal to accept those reasons is obstinate.

valhalla360 wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
I have to vehemently disagree. A good narrator can add a lot to a audio book. Listening to the "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" read by the author is wonderful. I can't say that the text-to-talk app doesn't work okay, since I've not tried it, but I would warrant it can't compare to a real person, and I mean a "GOOD" narrator.

You do realize, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a radio program that was transcribed into a book, so yes, it's a special case that benefits from mimicking the original media source.

For most books, there is a minor improvement but hardly noticable.

I didn't know that, and fail to see how it's relevant. He's not doing a radio skit, he's reading the book. How does the computer voice differentiate between different people? Male and female? We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I have to vehemently disagree. A good narrator can add a lot to a audio book. Listening to the "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" read by the author is wonderful. I can't say that the text-to-talk app doesn't work okay, since I've not tried it, but I would warrant it can't compare to a real person, and I mean a "GOOD" narrator.

I wholeheartedly agree! I listen to a lot of audio books and the narrator really makes it. Rarely though, the narrator can ruin it.

ReneeG wrote:

I have to vehemently disagree. A good narrator can add a lot to a audio book. Listening to the "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" read by the author is wonderful. I can't say that the text-to-talk app doesn't work okay, since I've not tried it, but I would warrant it can't compare to a real person, and I mean a "GOOD" narrator.

I wholeheartedly agree! I listen to a lot of audio books and the narrator really makes it. Rarely though, the narrator can ruin it.

I have to agree with Renee. While I still prefer reading rather than listening to books (although I have been moving to Kindle versions rather than physical books) the narrator of an audio book can make or destroy it. Speaking text is easy; telling a story with the author's intent is far more difficult - I doubt a computerized text to voice system will ever match a good narrator.

Some excellent narrators include Nicholas Guy Smith, George Guidall, or JD Jackson.

valhalla360 wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
NOAA radio broadcasts are a fine example of this, they replaced real humans reading and recording the forecast and weather info some 20 yrs ago.. There still are local towns and cities to me that are mispronounced to this day..

If that is what you are basing your recommendation off, I understand why.

I suggest actually downloading and trying some of the free apps...they are wildly better than the old NOAA voice.

No.

Alexa is a computer generated voice, Cortana is a computer generated voice, there are dozens if not thousands of different text to voice programs out there and none of them can 100% correctly mimic the intonation, inflection, emotion of a human, period. Listening to computer generated voices is, well, cold, heartless, lifeless, artificial.

If you think life is about a computer generated voice reading some words, you are 100% missing out on life.

Humans are unique, individual, have emotions, have passion, get excited, get upset, speed up, slow down, pause, emphasize and so on without any cues in the written word.. Absolutely no computer generated voice can show these types and more emotions in their voice..

If you just want to read a newspaper article out loud, here a weather forecast, get turn by turn driving instructions, sure, any computer generated voice will do.. But if you really want the full effect of the written word, having a real human read and speak it makes the words come to life, there is no substitute than the real thing.

The authors of books put their emotions in words into it, the reader when reading those words will interpret the words in their own unique personal way as they get fully immersed in the story and speak the story retelling it as if they were part of the story line.

Try taking your favorite song, convert the lyrics to text then have your favorite software computer generated voice sing it..

Some of us are not interested in living with "H.A.L. 9000" (watch 2001 A Space Oddessy if you don't understand the reference).

ReneeG wrote:


Not sure why you quoted my comment. The portable CD player I referred to had an ear phone adaptor and was portable. It did not plug into the vehicle and was not meant to

Well, mainly because the OP of the thread was using their now gone older vehicles CD player to play their audio books. With their new vehicle, there is no CD player to play audio books on CD and was asking for alternative methods to play their audio books on CD..

So in reality, just because you used a portable CD player to play audio books it doesn't really apply here unless the OP wants a portable CD player laying on the seat or floor and some BT adapter wired up to it also.

Most vehicle manufacturers no longer provide analog aux input jacks basically relegating a portable CD or even Mp3 player now useless with out an additional analog to BT digital adapter..

Now you have added more items into the chain..

On top of that, good quality portable CD players are pretty much a thing of the past, the big name brands have pulled out of that market yrs back and the leftovers that you can buy don't last and don't track the CDs as well, leading to a lot easier to skip tracks.

That leads us to the idea of say a dedicated MP3 player with built in BT adapter, dedicated MP3 player with external BT adapter, smart phone plugged into the USB port of the radio (but this method uses the radio to "control" playback which apparently a lot of folks don't like), Smart phone linked via BT (which also uses the radio to control playback which for some reason folks are fine with???)..

All of those methods are long, long workarounds which require a bunch of expensive parts and those parts are loose and use batteries and or will need charged..

The oddity of this whole thread is folks want to use all of these other less convenient and more hassle methods to avoid the easiest and most direct method which is to rip the CDs to MP3 and copy the MP3 files to a USB thumb drive..

I kind of get it, getting MP3 files to play in correct album order can seem to be a daunting and frustrating task but once you understand that you are dealing with computer OS logic then the task gets very easy.

You have to think of the play order in terms of how a computer OS places the files in order.

Logically, it is done in numeric sequence first.

File name starting with 1 plays before file named A

File named 10 will play before 1 (yep, this is one of those OS oddities that needs to be accounted for.

To get file named 1 to play before file named 10 you must name it 01 (IE add a leading zero to the 1)

To get each album to play without them being all jumbled up (a complaint from a lot of people on this forum in the past concerning playing MP3s from USB drive), you simply put all the album files from that CD into a folder for that album (folder naming uses same logic as file names).

I should note, the same exact rules that need to be followed for USB flash drives applies to most portable MP3 players if you want success. Some portable MP3 players totally ignore folder and file name for order of play, instead they use the date and time stamp of when the folder or file was copied to the payer :h why? I don't know.

I like the fact that I don't have to build a "playlist or play lists" and if I really wanted a "mixtape" I can drop a copy of my favorite songs into folders I mark like mix1, mix2 and so on..

Audio CDs can be ripped, Windows media player has the option to rip audio CDs or you can easily find free third party programs.. I use a program that came bundled with a friends Creative MP3 player many yrs ago, program installs and works fine even on Win10.

For digital downloaded files like Audible books you will need to find a program to convert the downloaded Audible books to MP3, they are out there..

Many mp3 drives can connect to the car stereo via the usb port - so an aux port isn't needed.

To me, the benefit of an mp3 player over a thumb drive is that when you get to your destination, you can connect the included earphones to it and continue listening. With the thumb drive, you have to have another device to continue listening.

In the end, there are many solutions - all have their pros and cons. It's up to the individual to decide which is best for them. It's not a "this is the only way to do it".

OP here: OK all this has given me a couple ideas.
First my wife found my old Moto 6 phone that stopped doing phone calls, but other functions seem to work. I'll give it a try via bluetooth or cable.
If not I'll get a MP3 player. I'd rather not tie up my phone doing this and would rather just have a device that can be left in the truck.

toedtoes wrote:
Many mp3 drives can connect to the car stereo via the usb port - so an aux port isn't needed.

To me, the benefit of an mp3 player over a thumb drive is that when you get to your destination, you can connect the included earphones to it and continue listening. With the thumb drive, you have to have another device to continue listening.

In the end, there are many solutions - all have their pros and cons. It's up to the individual to decide which is best for them. It's not a "this is the only way to do it".

Some MP3, not all players files "may" be readable by the vehicles radio, it is not 100% guaranteed that it will work. Using a MP3 player as storage still requires the same attention to the details I outline above on file names and folders. Depending on how your MP3 player decides to play the files, your files may not play in the same exact order when accessing digitally from your car stereo (and yes, I have seen that happen).

fj12ryder wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
I have to vehemently disagree. A good narrator can add a lot to a audio book. Listening to the "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" read by the author is wonderful. I can't say that the text-to-talk app doesn't work okay, since I've not tried it, but I would warrant it can't compare to a real person, and I mean a "GOOD" narrator.

You do realize, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a radio program that was transcribed into a book, so yes, it's a special case that benefits from mimicking the original media source.

For most books, there is a minor improvement but hardly noticeable.

I didn't know that, and fail to see how it's relevant. He's not doing a radio skit, he's reading the book. How does the computer voice differentiate between different people? Male and female? We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Warning thread drift:

A radio skit built around various exaggerated voices will benefit from maintaining those separate voices even when converted into the audiobook format.

Most audio books simply have a single narrator and he reads the text verbatim something like:

Narrator reads: “I like the cover," Arthur said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day. ”

Since the narrator said that Arthur said it, it's readily obvious who said it. The narrator typically doesn't effect a feminine voice for female parts if he is male (or vice versa with a female narrator reading male parts).