Rarely an entirely new device comes along with a combination of breakthrough function and unsurpassed accessibility for those with blindness and learning disabilities. We think the portable Plextalk PTR-1 CD recorder from Plextor Corporation is truly such a rare innovation. The Plextalk offers so much we hardly know how to fully describe it. Be patient as we introduce it to you.
Firstsome of you will already recognize the name Plextor as a leading developer of high performance CD equipment. However, it is not well known Plextor has also been aggressively working on technology for the next generation of digital talking books. Now combine this with IRTI's expertise with 4-track cassette players for talking books and our recent development of the eClipseReader software for playing DAISY talking books. The result is the making of a strong and valuable partnership. Plextalk and eClipseReader were meant for each other .
RTI is honored to have been selected by Plextor to distribute and provide technical support for this flagship CD recorder and audio management tool here in the U.S.
For years our customers have asked for a portable and truly accessible CD recorder. The Plextalk PTR-1 is certainly this and much, much more. Plextalk is small, only 7 by 6 by 1.5 inches, and weighs just under two lbs. Every function, every control, everything speaks. It records in CD audio format (CD-DA) or in MP3 format or in the very useful DAISY 2.02 format. And it is packed with features unmatched by any portable digital recorder on the market today.
Picture yourself in this typical day in the life as a Plextalk owner. At dawn's first light, you gently awake to the Plextalk playing your favorite track of a music CD activated at your preset time on the built-in talking clock and timer. Before hitting the road you check the day's schedule by popping in a CD you cleverly formatted as a talking appointment calendar in DAISY format. You recall the lunch appointment you committed to last night and you quickly add it to your recorded schedule for today.
Once off to school you enjoy the commute listening to your favorite tunes you have ripped, organized and burned to CD in stereo MP3 audio. After all, having portable instant access to your entire personal music collection on a CD or two can really kick the day's fun factor up a notch.
After a particularly enjoyable commute you're off to the first class of the day. A two-hour lecture is planned so you anticipate the need to stretch out Plextalk's battery life. You reach into your custom Plextalk carry case and pull out an optional 256 Meg solid state disk drive and slip it into the Plextalk's PC card port. With the push of a button, and with voice prompt confirmation, you set the recording mode from CD to solid state media, select conference/ lecture mode and set recording to use the external microphone input. Now you have up to six hours of record time on a single battery charge. An optional external SONY zoom microphone won't miss a word of the professor's talk while filtering out unwanted background noise.
The lecture will be packed with important details you will need to study later. You begin the DAISY recording with a heading topic recorded in your own voice. This topic might include the subject matter, the speaker's name and the date recorded. You will easily be able to locate this heading later. You also realize flagging key points of the lecture will speed up study time. No worries here. The Plextalk marks pages on the fly with the single press of a button. The pages you create are similar to tone index markers. Tonight, on your home computer, eClipseReader can instantly navigate to the markers using previous and next page controls as can the Plextalk itself.
After the lecture you load in the CD containing the entire semester's audio material for this class and copy today's lecture from the flash to this CD-R for archiving. You then erase the flash memory freeing up recording space for the next event.
The audio appointment calendar reminds you your buddy's band is performing at the school pep rally this afternoon. The band really has it together including a pro-audio mixing board and the auditorium is setup for great sound. It's going to be a hot show and recording the session live is a must.
You position yourself at the audio mixing board during sound check and slip on the Plextalk headphones. The soundman hands you a line-out audio feed from the mixing board and you plug it into what you think is the Plextalk's line-in connector. You chuckle. Not only is this device accessible, its nearly-human voice just announced you plugged the cable into the wrong connector. You unplug from Mic-in, connect to line-in and continue with sound check.
The band wants a live CD-quality recording, so you enter Plextalk's control panel and reset the recording parameters. For best sound quality you choose CD-Audio record format, record from the line-input and press the record button to manually set audio record levels. You monitor the record level through your headphones and the audible VU meter voices weather the levels are set too high or too low. Amazing! The record level is now perfect and you are ready to rock and roll.
The show goes off without a hitch and you've captured the performance to flash disk in CD quality audio. As the band begins breaking down the stage you pull out five blank CD's. You set the Plextalk to duplication mode andd before the bands gear is packed, you hand out CDs to each band member. Needless to say, you are hailed as the audio guru of the day..
Arriving home you are informed by your family it's your turn to cook dinner in the rotation of chores. You set your Plextalk on the kitchen counter and pull out a cookbook on CD in DAISY format. With the previous and next heading buttons you peruse the table of contents listing a wide variety of tasty meals. The recipe you choose is very detailed. It is convenient to use the phrase forward and back keys to repeat each instruction as needed.
Your creative nature takes over prompting you to modify the recipe. To make note of this change you set a bookmark and record in your own voice to double the amount of chilies.
While dinner cooks you continue scanning the book making bookmarks of recipes you'd like to try in the future.
Plextalk will store up to 10,000 bookmarks. There is no fear of running out of space for notes this year.
While dinner simmers, you set the Plextalk in calculator mode to verify portion size and caloric intake for the meal. Yes, there is room for ice cream tonight.
Meanwhile, homework assignments are beckoning to you. Retreating to your computer desk, you connect the Plextalk to a USB port. You boot up your system, as the Plextalk miraculously becomes a portable external CD-RW for your desktop PC.
You launch the DAISY recording software included with the Plextalk and import today's lecture in its DAISY format. There was a print handout given out during today's lecture which you scan into your PC. Then you import the text document into your audio project, which is automatically converted to MP3 audio and paginated by phrase. You label the converted text document as a sub heading level 2 and append it to the lecture.
You have some course reading material on 4-track cassette tape. Earlier in the day you converted this tape to DAISY format by recording direct to CD on the Plextalk at double normal tape speed. Using the Plextalk software, you import the recording into your audio project and then append it to the lecture with its own heading. You also decide to insert sequential page numbers which correspond to the beep tones recorded on the original audiotape. With the Plextalk editing software, you find paginating audio for navigation is a snap.
After importing and organizing the audio media from your recorded class lecture, the print handout and the book on tape, you run the "build" operation, a single-button operation and then write the book to CD, which is another single-button operation.
Believe it or not, you've just created your own Digital talking book in DAISY format containing today's recorded lecture, a print document converted to audio, and a talking book originally on four-track cassette tape. Your DAISY book can be navigated by heading, page or phrase and plays back on the Plextalk, on your PC with eClipseReader and, in some cases, on a standard MP3 player.
You take the Plextalk and your DAISY book on CD out to the back porch to study in the balmy evening breeze. As you review the collage of audio media, you insert bookmarks including voice notes containing your comments and thoughts for later review. Listening with the built-in speech compression feature really saves time.
After a full day, both you and the Plextalk are ready to retire. You set the Plextalk on the nightstand and plug in its AC adapter to charge the lithium ion battery for tomorrow's busy schedule. You set Plextalk's sleep timer for half an hour and pop in the novel you recently bought on standard audio CD. As you listen to the novel and drift off to sleep, you have no concern about loosing your place in the book, as the Plextalk will automatically shutdown and remember where it left off.
Well, this has been quite a day! Do you see yourself in any of these situations where the Plextalk easily met so many needs?
PLEXTALK and eClipseReader Pricing:Updated on ... December 04, 2006