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Seconded. After I saw and heard how blind people use screen readers (with experience), I started accelerating audio. You can train your brain to become better a

by jwr 11y ago

Seconded. After I saw and heard how blind people use screen readers (with experience), I started accelerating audio. You can train your brain to become better at understanding — I started at 1.25x and slowly worked my way up. I am now at 1.75x - 2x (plus Overcast's silence removal) and I have no problems, even though English isn't my native language. Two requirements: headphones (you need much more processing power to deal with crappy speakers and poor audio in general) and lack of significant distractions (you can't afford to think about something else). Also, some apps have crappy audio acceleration algorithms. Overcast does it so well that I use it also for listening to audiobooks. I also think the article is misinformed. You can speed read by regularly training your brain. Just don't expect miracles and don't believe the "experts" who try to sell you miracles.

jobigoud 11y ago
Yes the speech rate algorithm is important. The application I use uses the Sonic algorithm by Bill Cox, which is actually optimized for rates over 2x. https://github.com/waywardgeek/sonic https://github.com/waywardgeek/sonic I think speed rate should be a standard control on every multimedia player, just like volume.
- ash 11y ago
  > The application I use What application do you use for listening?
  - jobigoud 11y ago
    Well I haven't tested a lot of them so not sure if it's relevant but I use DoggCatcher as a player and another app called Presto that shims the Android audio layer to increase the speech rate transparently for the player app. It's Presto that uses the Sonic library.
    - mintplant 11y ago
      Do you have a link for Presto? I can't find anything about it online.
      - enimodas 11y ago
        probably https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falconware.prestissimo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falconware...
      - jobigoud 11y ago
        Hmm, now you got me worried. I use a dedicated device for podcasts that is still running Android 2.x. Prestissimo seems to be the new name, but itself deprecated in Android 6.0. I'll have to look into that before that device dies.
ash 11y ago
I didn't know about Overcast. Volume normalization for listening in noisy places, smart speed with silence removal - I want those features! Unfortunately Overcast is iOS only. Could anyone recommend an Android app similar to Overcast?
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  Pocket Casts [1] is the closest you can get on Android. I use Podcast Addict [2], but it's a bit bloated to be frank. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyj... [2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuna.podcastaddict https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuna.po...
  - myko 11y ago
    Pocket Casts is amazing. I use it on iOS and Android. It has silence removal and variable speed playback.
- jwr 11y ago
  Well, before Overcast appeared I used to just manually process audiobook files with ffmpeg. The command line was: `ffmpeg -threads 16 -i "$infile" -vn -filter:a "atempo=2.0" -c:a pcm_s16le "$outfile"`; this produced a .wav file, which is what I fed into Audiobook Builder to produce an .m4b audiobook. Overcast does a significantly better job, though, and without any extra hassle on my part.

by jwr 11y ago

jobigoud 11y ago

Yes the speech rate algorithm is important. The application I use uses the Sonic algorithm by Bill Cox, which is actually optimized for rates over 2x. https://github.com/waywardgeek/sonic https://github.com/waywardgeek/sonic I think speed rate should be a standard control on every multimedia player, just like volume.

ash 11y ago
> The application I use What application do you use for listening?
- jobigoud 11y ago
  Well I haven't tested a lot of them so not sure if it's relevant but I use DoggCatcher as a player and another app called Presto that shims the Android audio layer to increase the speech rate transparently for the player app. It's Presto that uses the Sonic library.
  - mintplant 11y ago
    Do you have a link for Presto? I can't find anything about it online.
    - enimodas 11y ago
      probably https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falconware.prestissimo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falconware...
    - jobigoud 11y ago
      Hmm, now you got me worried. I use a dedicated device for podcasts that is still running Android 2.x. Prestissimo seems to be the new name, but itself deprecated in Android 6.0. I'll have to look into that before that device dies.

ash 11y ago

I didn't know about Overcast. Volume normalization for listening in noisy places, smart speed with silence removal - I want those features! Unfortunately Overcast is iOS only. Could anyone recommend an Android app similar to Overcast?

Cyph0n 11y ago
Pocket Casts [1] is the closest you can get on Android. I use Podcast Addict [2], but it's a bit bloated to be frank. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyj... [2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuna.podcastaddict https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuna.po...
- myko 11y ago
  Pocket Casts is amazing. I use it on iOS and Android. It has silence removal and variable speed playback.
jwr 11y ago
Well, before Overcast appeared I used to just manually process audiobook files with ffmpeg. The command line was: `ffmpeg -threads 16 -i "$infile" -vn -filter:a "atempo=2.0" -c:a pcm_s16le "$outfile"`; this produced a .wav file, which is what I fed into Audiobook Builder to produce an .m4b audiobook. Overcast does a significantly better job, though, and without any extra hassle on my part.