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Launching Gutenberg Radio - Public Domain Audiobooks

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cliff's-notes dept.

tgbg writes "We are proud to announce the launch of "Gutenberg Radio". On these broadcast channels, you can hear the Gutenberg Library and anything else the Gutenberg family cares to share with its public."

10 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Computer Generated Audio Book by zubernerd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to what I read on the linked site, they are using "Test-to-Speech" software. This seems no different than using a text-to-speech agent on your own computer. What is the advantage for recording the text-to-speech? (When I think of audio books, I usually think of a human reader... not a computer - a human tends to be more accurate, esp. with languages like english)

    --
    Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
    1. Re:Computer Generated Audio Book by JohnFluxx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know what they are doing, but one example would be for someone to go through the text and add in markers for how the computer should say things (angry, loud, etc), so you get the right inflections and voices etc.

    2. Re:Computer Generated Audio Book by GrimReality · · Score: 2, Interesting
      When I think of audio books, I usually think of a human reader... not a computer - a human tends to be more accurate, esp. with languages like english

      True. However, have you considered the cost of making audio recordings of books?

      Another interesting note would be that audio books tend to use abridged versions for historical reasons --the size of audio-tape cartridges. This may or maynot be the case now, but even newer recordings seem to be done this way. With automated text-to-speech this problem could be overcome pretty easily, I suppose

      Thank you.
      GrimReality
      2003-04-21 15:04:47 UTC (2003-04-21 11:04:47 EDT)

  2. What about the Chinese? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Chinese used the print for thousands of years, long before Gutenberg.

    Actually, Gutenberg did not invent the printing, but the mobile printing.The Chinese language has thousands and thousands of ideograms and under these circumstances mobile printing is not a practical solution anyway; plate printing is easier to use. If it was useful for them The Chinese would have invented it.

    1. Re:What about the Chinese? by Galvatron · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The chinese DID invent it, they just abandoned it, because as you say, it's not worth the effort. However, I believe that Gutenberg invented his press without ever learning about the Chinese version, and therefore deserves full credit for the invention. The Chinese also deserve credit for having invented a movable type printing press, but deserve derision for sticking with an unbelievably inefficient alphabet, which prevented them from progressing past medieval levels of development for over a thousand years.

      --
      "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
    2. Re:What about the Chinese? by dalutong · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you remember correctly, Western civilization has had its eras of non-development. The "dark ages," for instance. Also, when the Romans started to be dominant they stopped developing as much. That lasted longer than the Chinese dark ages (which, at most, could be from 13-something to 17 or 18-something.) But Latin has always had an alphabet! Why did Europe stop thinking for almost 1000 years? Because they chose not to! Religion and Feudalism, among other things, created a general disinterest in promoting science.

      The fact of the matter is that societies rise and fall. They grow, stop developing as quickly, feel they "know enough" and then have some outside force make them fall.

      Even now we can see this effect. The Cold War is over, information is spread more quickly than ever, but you don't see people trying to get commercial space flight or moon resorts up and running. Those who have the money don't care, those who do care don't have the money. Information won't make it magically happen.

      That was China in 1300. I have studied China my whole life. I believe what I believe because I know who Chinese society works, speak, read and write Chinese, and have seen students in the country, with no books, learn advanced algebra off of a chalk-board -- because they were inclined to do so. Had they thought farming was enough and that the government would take care of them, no amount of reading would have gotten them off their asses to do work.

      Look at America! Are people are some of the least education in the modern world. People laugh at how simple our education is. How is that possible if we have the largest free library system in the world? Because we don't care to learn.

      --

      What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
  3. You're just not thinking about it the right way. by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The printing press was a the first effective tool for broadcasting information to a large population. Gutenberg did not invent writing, he invented a way of mass copying written language. Considering it that way, audio broadcasting fits right in.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  4. Re:Chinese writing inefficient? by BJH · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Quite right.

    I speak, read and write Japanese, and I spent some time learning Chinese a few years ago. I've since forgotten 99% of the Chinese I learned, but I can still read Chinese with a reasonable level of understanding.

    I think of the difference between phonteic and ideographic writing systems like this - one takes only a short time to learn to read, but each word's meaning has to be learned separately. For the other, it takes longer to learn to read, but once you've done that, you have at least a vague understanding of 90% of the words you see in everyday usage.

    So, is it more efficient to spend more time at the start or more time throughout? I don't know, but I do know that anybody who says one way is better than the other has an agenda of their own.

  5. Re:Hmm... by ZanshinWedge · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Screw that, they should just get it over with, return the copyright laws to normal and specifically make a law taking Mickey out of the public domain in perpetuity. Yeah, it's stupid and arbitrary, just like the rest of the laws Disney et al get passed, but at least this way the damage is minimized.

  6. Re:Why not let people download rather than stream? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I can't imagine that audio books are that costly to produce. Sound proof rooms are easy to build or find and the equipment necessary to record good quality spoken word should be readily available on most decent fidelity sound cards. At most, i would be a few hundred to maybe a few thousand dollars to create a decent recording studio for spoken word.

    I would also think that recording books would be a great project for a university communications or broadcast journalism department that could possibly use campus radio station equipment, etc. We get good quality audio books while they get to practice their reading and speaking. It would be nice to see some universities stepping up to help with such a worthwhile endeavor.