Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: 2manyrocks on February 04, 2014, 10:56:06 AM
-
Friend's Dad is sight impaired. He bought his Dad a tablet to listen to music, but the lack of tactile response from the touch screen surface isn't working. It's good that all the music is on the tablet, but the touch screen is not user friendly to someone whose eyesight is about nonexistent.
There are some applications to make the tablet buzz, talkback, etc., but I have no experience with them. We've also thought about putting some gaff tape in places where he needs to work the tablet, but we're not so sure about this working, either.
Wondering if something like the Tascam Dr-05 with its push button controls might be a better option. Problem is he'd have to push through all the songs to find the ones he wants since he can't see the screen.
Any other suggestions?
-
laptop/netbook.
tactile keys
then a quick google search yields.
JAWS screen reader software
http://www.freedomscientific.com/jaws-hq.asp
+
blindtunes.net
-
damn, forgot how expensive good accessibility software is.
-
$895 for the basic version of JAWS. Yikes.
-
$895 That's just evil.
I Googled "free screenreader software" and came up with this, though. No idea if it works but the site looks earnest enough.
http://www.screenreader.net/index.php?pageid=11
-
Maybe I'm overthinking this. Apparently, the Sansa Clip zip ($22 refurb or $34 new) has a talking menu.
There is also a free firmware update that apparently helps with the talking playback, but I'm not sure if it's needed. www.rockbox.org
-
After working with the player and Rockbox for a while, a few initial comments for those that might be considering a player for a blind person.
The first problem was that Win7 home kept reporting that the player's batter was critically low and wouldn't let me install Rockbox on the player. Changing the player's settings to USB and using Win7 pro overcame this initial problem.
Rockbox has a very convenient utility that installs Rockbox on the player. By default, Rockbox will speak the major menu items, but you have to go in the menu to set it to speak individual directory and file names within directories. It also appears to me that you have to manually insert a file named _dirname.talk into each directory for it to speak individual file names. After installing this file, the accessibility menu on the Rockbox utility will build whatever it is that enables the player to speak the individual file names of the mp3 music files.
At this point, I am fairly amazed at what this $20 refurb MP3 player will do with Rockbox installed.
-
Have you checked out Squeezebox?
It's open source and the support for the product is *vast*. I see there has already been chatter about this topic, but I don't know the status.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/archive/index.php/t-63422.html
-
Hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it. Briefly reading up a bit, the person would have to have internet to get music? It's not like an MP3 player where the music is downloaded on the player?
I do wish I could find the guy a nicer player.