E-ink device with TTS/audiobook integration

[Feher]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

PocketBook has good TTS. You may want to look at the PocketBook Touch 2 which was announced today and will be availalbe in a few weeks' time.

That's awesome news. Thanks
I hope pocketbook launches the color reader soon

[rkomar]

Looking at the "About device..." information on my PocketBook reader, it says that the SVOX TTS system is used. There are 26 available languages for it (all downloadable for free), but you can only store 4 at a time on the reader. If you want to add a new one, you have to remove one of the old ones.

[verona]

I also looked closer at the combination of using e-ink reader for text + iPhone for audio. There is enough TTS iOS apps that support clouds like Google drive or Dropbox, but the problem is to sync reading position between audio- and text version. I found only one app that seems to be the sollution: Blio (which uses really good Acapela TTS). Since they also have an Android app, I wonder if there are e-ink Andoid readers that can run it?! If a reader has WiFi and is powered by Android, does it automatically means that an Android app can be installed?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by verona

I also looked closer at the combination of using e-ink reader for text + iPhone for audio. There is enough TTS iOS apps that support clouds like Google drive or Dropbox, but the problem is to sync reading position between audio- and text version. I found only one app that seems to be the sollution: Blio (which uses really good Acapela TTS). Since they also have an Android app, I wonder if there are e-ink Andoid readers that can run it?! If a reader has WiFi and is powered by Android, does it automatically means that an Android app can be installed?

No, it isn't automatic. The recent Sony ereaders run Android, but the most recent of them can't be rooted. So, you can't install arbitrary apps on them. You'll have to do research on any candidates you come up with.

[verona]

Few days ago Amazon has updated their Kindle app for iPhone with VoiceOver support! So now iPhone can read aloud Kindle books and the reading position is automatically synced to the cloud. Looks like Kindle is the winner

[rkomar]

I'm glad you found something that works for you. I'm actually impressed that someone provided this feature, since it seems complicated and perhaps not needed by many people.

I vaguely remember a few years ago that Kindle e-readers had TTS, but introduced support for a flag inside ebooks that allowed publishers to disable TTS for it (so as not to compete with their lucrative audio books). I remember a lot of griping at the time, but I don't know how things ended up because I've never owned a Kindle e-reader. Do they still have this feature enforced in Kindle ereaders and apps, and do publishers still turn TTS off on ebooks?

[Shadowplay]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I vaguely remember a few years ago that Kindle e-readers had TTS, but introduced support for a flag inside ebooks that allowed publishers to disable TTS for it (so as not to compete with their lucrative audio books). I remember a lot of griping at the time, but I don't know how things ended up because I've never owned a Kindle e-reader. Do they still have this feature enforced in Kindle ereaders and apps, and do publishers still turn TTS off on ebooks?

Yep, I run into it all the time. I listen to a lot of books on my daily commute. I have a Kindle Keyboard (3rd gen Kindle) and love that I can use TTS to listen to the book in my car and then pick up *reading* right where the TTS left off and vice versa. If you look at any kindle-edition of a book on Amazon's website there's a set of specs for the book and one of them is Text-To-Speech Enabled: Yes/No. I buy a lot of books through Amazon and if TTS is disabled I convert the book and strip that block off. I'm buying the book, let me do what I want with it.

My Kindle's screen has been doign some strange things lately and is well outside the warranty period so I've started thinking about what I'll get as a replacement, but it's hard to find something new that's e-Ink with TTS support.