Dear all.
Please take a few minutes to read this message.
I have to say that after having looked through the variety of portable
sound recorders, recently on the market, I get more and more worried.
It seams as the modern technical trend is meant to serve the benefits of
some people but not all.
It is already a known fact thas some visually impaired or blind people
are excellent recordists. Recently some, if not all recent models of
sound recorders have touch screens instead of tactile (raised) buttons.
An other fact is the menu system. Through the menus all kinds of things
can be controlled - the type o files, frequency settings, file
structure, formatting etc. Most of these things are unreachable by blind
persons.
Some producers (in fact I only know about 2) have installed speech into
some of the menu systems but not the whole systems. Olympus and Sound
Devices can be mentioned in this case, but the systems with the speech
only give limited access to the information.
In 2007 I bought a Nagra Ares BB+. The reason was the structure o the
menu system which made it almost possible for me to keep control of most
of the settings needed for the most frequent setups. When I complained
about the silent menu system I was told that Steavy wonder could cobe
with it.:)
I still favour this recorder as a high quality soundproducer.
Recently I bought a Zoom H6. Some recommended an F-8, but there were too
many elements which were not usable for my purposes o field recordings.
Now my statement is this:
The American foundation of the Blind has been fighting for a better
access of blind and visually impaired people to the world web. More and
more people now reach the age when their sight will decrease. Some of
them might be in our group of field recordists.
Shouldn't they love to be able to carry on with thei recordings?
What about the companies, producing recording equipments?
Arn't they violating the human rights by not taking into consideration
the needs of a ever growing group of people with reduced or no vision at
all?
I must say that my contacts with some of the companies have been quite
positive. Thus Zoom has made it possible for me to work with some
settings by providing scriptly information about the necessary steps,
even though it happened last Saturday that I did something wrong so that
a whole recording was an Mp3 224 kb instead of a WAV 24 bits and 48
Hertz. Fortunately my sighted wife helped me to restore the propper
settings.
Let us join together to create a better world for all o us.
Best regards,
Arnthor
http://hljod.blog.is
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
|