Amazon releases Kindle Paperwhite with VoiceView

[hrezaei]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Hrezaei, assuming you put the files in the right spot (Oasis should have come with them already? or is that only the voice folder?), you might want to double check your language settings. Far as I know it still only works with US American language setting.

Hello
We checked the language, It's set to English US.
I put the voice .bin files that I download from amazon in kindle's root directory, press the power button and hold it until it restarts. but still It keeps saying that it can't find any voice files.
What I'm surprised is that, When reading posts and articles on the internet, all of them mention that they have a "voice" folder in there kindle directory when they connect it to their computer, but mine does not. the only folder that I have is documents.

[Barty]

I don't think putting the voice files in the root folder will work. Create a /voice folder yourself and put the voice files there.

[hrezaei]

Originally Posted by Barty

I don't think putting the voice files in the root folder will work. Create a /voice folder yourself and put the voice files there.

I don't have the voice files unfortunately. It'd be cool If i could get them from somewhere, Maybe i should create a topic and ask users if they can upload their voice folder for me.

What do i have, is a .bin file from amazon's website, which they recommend to put in the root directory and restart to install (which does not work on the oasis). It just disappears.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by hrezaei

I don't have the voice files unfortunately. It'd be cool If i could get them from somewhere, Maybe i should create a topic and ask users if they can upload their voice folder for me.

You could do that, if your goal is to get banned from this site for requesting the unauthorised posting of copyrighted material. If that's not what you want to happen, I'd suggest not making such a request.

[hrezaei]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You could do that, if your goal is to get banned from this site for requesting the unauthorised posting of copyrighted material. If that's not what you want to happen, I'd suggest not making such a request.

OH, alright. I didn't know that sharing the voice files is considered against the rules. I actually didn't realize copyright issues. never mind then.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by hrezaei

Hello
We checked the language, It's set to English US.
I put the voice .bin files that I download from amazon in kindle's root directory, press the power button and hold it until it restarts. but still It keeps saying that it can't find any voice files.
What I'm surprised is that, When reading posts and articles on the internet, all of them mention that they have a "voice" folder in there kindle directory when they connect it to their computer, but mine does not. the only folder that I have is documents.

Did you go to Settings and choose 'Update Your Kindle' from the menu there? I don't know if a restart is sufficient. The .bin update files for voice view should go in 'root' of the Kindle storage.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by hrezaei

What do i have, is a .bin file from amazon's website, which they recommend to put in the root directory and restart to install (which does not work on the oasis). It just disappears.

This probably won't work either, but...

Put the bin file in the root folder again, then instead of restarting, go to settings, then from the menu, choose update your kindle.

In any event, since you got the file from Amazon support, you can contact them again and say hey the file you sent me didn't work.

[HarryT]

If you ask in the dev forum, they have a tool that can extract the files from an installer bin file.

[avid01]

On a related note: can you confirm that older Kindles played MP3 files/podcasts/audiobooks/ newer models don't?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by avid01

On a related note: can you confirm that older Kindles played MP3 files/podcasts/audiobooks/ newer models don't?

The last Kindle that had that ability was, if memory serves me correctly, the Kindle Touch. But it was never more than a rudimentary capability designed to allow Amazon to claim it was an MP3 player. I really can't imagine anyone using it one!

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by Katie1

Why would people that Cant see even want to buy a PW? Crazy...

Space: The Braille edition of either The Message or The New International Version of the Bible is 15 shelf feet. Shelves are 15 inches deep;

Cost: Braille printed material costs roughly a dollar per page. More, if nobody is subsidizing the cost of the Braille printing.

Availability: Most material is not available in Braille format. Material like Tad Williams To The Green Tower: Part 1 becomes available in Braille, only if somebody subsides the cost of transcribing it.

If the comparison is to Audio Books, rather than Braille Books, then the issues are:

Cost: Looking through the Amazon AudioBook shop, it looks like audio books are roughly twice the cost of the pbook. Understandable, because the cost of producing an audio book is much higher than that of producing a pbook.

Availability: Typically, audio books are released three to six months after the pbook --- if the pbook is a commercial success. If the pbook is published by an independent publishers/small publisher, then the odds are that an audio book will not be made, unless BARD does so.

If the comparison is to Moon printed material, then take everything written about Braille material and:
* Multiply the space requirements by 10;
* Multiply the cost requirements by ten orders of magnitude;
* Decrease the availability of material by 10^9 orders of magnitude.

Amber

[hrezaei]

Thank you guys for your posts.
I managed to get the screen reader running on oasis.
I googled and found the kindle tool, used windows cmd and extracted amazon's voice file, and there was a file there called "data.stgz" I managed to extract that using 7zip and I found the voice folder there!
So i just dropped the folder into kindle's root directory and when i plug my adapter now, It works!

On the topic of VoiceView itself, I've found two flaws that annoy me a lot.
The first one is that apparently VoiceView only works on continuous mode on Kindle ereaders. (Meaning that there's only one gesture that when used, It'll start reading the entire book! for you) This means that you can't read page by page, or paragraph/line, or spell a word. If you interrupt voiceView while its reading the entire book and use swipe, It'll read word by word only.
I found that very hard myself As a blind person. for me Continuous mode is alright for story books but for school books or something that requires you to read a page /paragraph two ore more times this is going to annoy you a lot, since you have to interrupt voiceview, turn page back, drag your finger around and up and find the word, and drag with two fingers so you could read that part again. It's really horrible IMO.
The second thing (which might be for the oasis only) is that if you remove the cover VoiceView will not work at all, So you're stuck using it with the cover on. If you take it off, It'll just stop working for whatever reason.

If you're visually impaired and rely on screen readers, I really recommend against buying Amazon's ereaders for now. It's better if you stick to mobile/tablet devices for reading books. Or you could buy the much cheaper kindle 8th generation and use the VoiceView feature and send feedback to amazon and hope that they care to add features and remove the current limitations.

Cheers

[jifgena]

How did you manage to do this? I've been trying to find a program that will extract from the bin file for hours. I've tried 7zip/universal extractor/magic iso

Please help or share the file?

"Thank you guys for your posts.
I managed to get the screen reader running on oasis.
I googled and found the kindle tool, used windows cmd and extracted amazon's voice file, and there was a file there called "data.stgz" I managed to extract that using 7zip and I found the voice folder there!
So i just dropped the folder into kindle's root directory and when i plug my adapter now, It works!"

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by jifgena

How did you manage to do this? I've been trying to find a program that will extract from the bin file for hours. I've tried 7zip/universal extractor/magic iso

Please help or share the file?

"Thank you guys for your posts.
I managed to get the screen reader running on oasis.
I googled and found the kindle tool, used windows cmd and extracted amazon's voice file, and there was a file there called "data.stgz" I managed to extract that using 7zip and I found the voice folder there!
So i just dropped the folder into kindle's root directory and when i plug my adapter now, It works!"

You don't need to extract the voice file, it can be downloaded from Amazon.com on this page

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=202006400

Select the link in this paragraph (the words in bold are actually a direct link to download the voice file on the Amazon webpage)

Download the Audio File for Your Device

If you’ve recently factory reset your Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation), you will need to re-download the audio file for your device.

To download and install the audio file:

1. Download Audio file for Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation)

[jifgena]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

You don't need to extract the voice file, it can be downloaded from Amazon.com on this page

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=202006400

Select the link in this paragraph (the words in bold are actually a direct link to download the voice file on the Amazon webpage)

Download the Audio File for Your Device

If you’ve recently factory reset your Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation), you will need to re-download the audio file for your device.

To download and install the audio file:

1. Download Audio file for Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation)

Of course I tried that option first but it didn't work with my kindle whichis why I went down the route of trying to find the specific voice file. In the end I had to get amazon to deliever another oasis. I then copied the file over and it works fine. It seems quite silly to have had to get a brand new oasis in order to copy across a file that could have just been emailed to me or shared with me. Anyway at least I've got it up and running but I wish there was a way I could save someone else all the bother I had to go to. I'm guessing its due to copyright laws that they need to provide it as a .bin file that needs to be installed by the kindle program itself.