SUBTITLES? proposal for an alternative recording method

Comments about LibriVox? Suggestions to improve things? News?

Would you use this program to record your books?

Poll ended at January 15th, 2006, 6:57 pm

Yes
2
29%
No
5
71%
 
Total votes: 7

GordMackenzie
Posts: 597
Joined: September 26th, 2005, 5:50 am
Location: Troy, MI

Post by GordMackenzie »

tshirt wrote:
This could be a better choice than going to a proprietary ebook format, because
the audio will still be in the mp3 or ogg format.
Interesting about the AVI... I think DAISY supports standard audio files, however. But again, it will take wading through the specification and it's pretty dense. They don't make it easy... which is rather strange for an organization that is supposedly trying to promote the format...
Gord Mackenzie
gord[dot]mackenzie[at]gmail.com
Librivox Wiki Page: [url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/GordMackenzie]GordMackenzie[/url]
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

SMIL (pronnounced smile) from w3 consortium:
SMIL is typically used for "rich media"/multimedia
presentations which integrate streaming audio and
video with images, text or any other media type.

Accessibility part of the site talks about subtitles:
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/#Accessibil

The more interesting part is that there are a number of authoring tools already:
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/#Authoring

I wonder any of these will do the job for us.
Stephan
Posts: 1550
Joined: December 18th, 2005, 9:38 am
Location: Leverkusen, Germany

Post by Stephan »

I can?t poll, tshirt. Because i read your description twice, but i don?t get (probably language barrier) what the program is intendet to do.
:oops:
Could you say in other words? Please? Probably 3-4 sentences?
[url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/PromotionalMaterial][color=indigo]Want to promote LV? Print the poster and pin it at your library[/color][/url] | [url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/Stephan_Moebius][color=indigo]My wiki page[/color][/url]
GordMackenzie
Posts: 597
Joined: September 26th, 2005, 5:50 am
Location: Troy, MI

Post by GordMackenzie »

tshirt wrote: SMIL is typically used for "rich media"/multimedia
presentations which integrate streaming audio and
video with images, text or any other media type.
Yes, DAISY uses SMIL as well (not to keep harking back to DAISY, just that SMIL is clearly well adopted). I'll take a look at the tools you point to, tshirt.
Gord Mackenzie
gord[dot]mackenzie[at]gmail.com
Librivox Wiki Page: [url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/GordMackenzie]GordMackenzie[/url]
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

Stephan wrote:I can?t poll, tshirt. Because i read your description twice, but i don?t get (probably language barrier) what the program is intendet to do.
:oops:
Could you say in other words? Please? Probably 3-4 sentences?
I am thinking of a better description. I'll post as soon as I come up with one.
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

Is anybody out there that knows about speech processing? A simple
boundary detection algorithm could make things so much easier to
manage the editing of recordings.
Stephan
Posts: 1550
Joined: December 18th, 2005, 9:38 am
Location: Leverkusen, Germany

Post by Stephan »

Just wanted to say *WOW* that you wanna code something for librivox.

Your last question to me, is the same as asking:
Anybody here have some expereince in nuclear fission, large hedron colliders and some quantum theory? I really could use some help here.
Last edited by Stephan on January 8th, 2006, 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
[url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/PromotionalMaterial][color=indigo]Want to promote LV? Print the poster and pin it at your library[/color][/url] | [url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/Stephan_Moebius][color=indigo]My wiki page[/color][/url]
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

Stephan wrote:Anybody here have some expereince in nuclear fission,
large hedron colliders and some quantum theory? I really could use some
help here.
:) It's really not impossible. And once we get some prototype we will have
a lot of people offering a hand.
hugh
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 7972
Joined: September 26th, 2005, 4:14 am
Location: Montreal, QC
Contact:

Post by hugh »

yeah I'm in the nuclear camp, but this could be a very cool project. can't help tho, except in conceptual specs.
kayray
Posts: 11828
Joined: September 26th, 2005, 9:10 am
Location: Union City, California
Contact:

Post by kayray »

Stephan wrote:Just wanted to say *WOW* that you wanna code something for librivox.

Your last question to me, is the same as asking:
Anybody here have some expereince in nuclear fission, large hedron colliders and some quantum theory? I really could use some help here.
LOL Stephan! Yup, yup, I've only been skimming this thread because it's all nuclear physics to me. But, y'know, good luck and all, tshirt! More power to you!

Kara
Kara
http://kayray.org/
--------
"Mary wished to say something very sensible into her Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, but knew not how." -- Jane Austen (& Kara)
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

I would like to write down the description of the new recording software,
but I need your help.

Could you post what you would want in a recording software? Don't
hesitate to put the wildest features you would desire but you're afraid to
ask for; they are the most important ones.

Let me start with a couple of them:

* GPL !
* automatic scrolling of text as you read.
* noise cancelling with software (so that you don't have to invest in
expensive mics)
* help for intonation of the text (e.g. high pitch words displayed in bold)
* automatic evaluation of your intonation as you record
* manual evaluation of the intonation as you listen to a book (i.e. to be
given as feedback to the person that recorded the book; or to be
incorporated into automatic evaluation of other recordings)
* synchronised navigation of text and recorded audio (so that you can
find a particular portion of the recording easily for post-editing)
* ability to run the software on mobile phones and pdas
* ability to run from the web (e.g. from librivox.org)
RobertG
Posts: 278
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 7:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Contact:

Post by RobertG »

Peter Why wrote:Because of computer noise being picked up, I record as far away from my computer as possible, so *have* to use a printout.
I'm no technophobe as I make my living teaching high-end modeling software and have worked on numerous programs dating back 25 years (mainframe days - MVS). Unlike Peter, my laptop runs pretty silently. I also don't have the display issues that some others have mentioned that would prevent me from reading the screen.

For whatever reason, I like to read a story with a book in my hands. Barring that, I grab the text from Gutenburg, apply the Californian font, blow it up to 16 pt., set it at 1.5 line spacing and then print it out on recycled paper.

When I record, I'm sitting near my computer but turned away from it.

If I were using a tablet style display that felt more book-like, I might change my mind. :? This would be especially useful if I could mark up the display with an electronic pen. When I come across pronunciations that I'm unsure of, I tend to write them out phonetically on the print-out.

Unfortunately, about the only people I ever see using tablet pc's are some of my friends over at Microsoft. I don't suppose there would be a big demand to develop programs for such a small market.

Robert
[size=92]http://climber53.com
[i]a one thin dime production[/i][/size]
[size=75][color=blue]-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-[/color]
[url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/RobertGarrison]project status is in the wiki[/url][/size]
tshirt
Posts: 43
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 6:12 pm
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Contact:

Post by tshirt »

Hi Robert,

I have opened another thread in 'Volunteers Wanted: Other Projects' group.
http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=945

There has been some interesting discussion going on over there about
possible uses beyond LibriVox. However I still think mobile computers and
tablets especially are a good target, since they could become more
common in a few years; and LibriVox could benefit a lot if the software
were ready by then.
RobertG
Posts: 278
Joined: January 5th, 2006, 7:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Contact:

Post by RobertG »

I've been keeping an eye on the other thread, T. My speciality is engineering design applications - 3D modeling - so I don't know how much I can contribute to programming discussions. VBA is about my limit for programming.

LibriVox is a very exciting thing to be involved with but it was not the technology that drew me in. It was the reading itself and the opportunity to mix it up with other like-minded artists. I say artists because that it was I consider readers to be- performing artists. Beyond even that, I think that the act of reading to others is an extremely important - no, vital - thing to have in our society. Especially in American society, where people have drifted into isolation for a variety of reasons but contributed to by technology (starting with television, maybe even radio).

I like to keep myself focused on the message, not necessarily the medium.

All of that said, I think one of the technological limits for these artists to move entirely away from paper-based reading will be the hardware display. As I indicated earlier, I think the hardware needs to be book-like, easily legible and capable of mark-up by pen.

What is out there now is costly (cheapest I found was ~$1,800). I don't think handhelds will catch on because they are too small.

It's an interesting thing to ponder how what is happening here and with other podcasters might drive new hardware development.

Robert
[size=92]http://climber53.com
[i]a one thin dime production[/i][/size]
[size=75][color=blue]-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-[/color]
[url=http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/RobertGarrison]project status is in the wiki[/url][/size]
Guest

Post by Guest »

Robert,

do you think it would help if the computer screen provided you with
phonetic representation of words? ...or other types of annotations
you might think about. (I am thinking of contributors that actually
annotate the text with these information, as well as automatic
tools that help them do it easier)
Post Reply