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Digitizing FSI | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7247 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes  | Message 25 of 237 12 March 2005 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Malcom,
Re bitrate: these are voice recordings so there is no need to encode anything but mono which would automatically cut your bitrate to 56 kbps. I'm playing around with the voice mode of LAME which uses an average of 48 kbps and works well. What I would like to do gather a set of free/open-source tools that anyone who wants to help can use. I'd suggest that you give Francois and me a week to work things out and then hopefully we can move forward. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7315 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 26 of 237 12 March 2005 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Pentatonic:
I can only encode with my mp3 player (which has a decent line-in function) because the courses I have access to are "in-library" loans. I can't take the cassettes home and use the computer. I have the choice of encoding at 96, 128, or 160 kbps. I cannot perceive a difference between the three, especially with voice. I'll start encoding as soon as I get a chance, since it's not possible for me to use any other encoding method. However, I could always convert it later to whatever standard you guys decide on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| blackr00t Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7202 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 27 of 237 13 March 2005 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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hey guys, pardon my ignorance, i've never bought an FSI course before, but don't they come with a textbook too ?
Would you guys try to compile this as well, or just the audio portion ? Also, I've had much confusion between the courses that Multilingual books sells, Audioforum, and the standard Barron's FSI. Is there a difference between these, given that the barron's course costs about $150 less than the others. I ask because I'm saving to buy one of these courses and am not sure as to what I should buy. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7247 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes | Message 28 of 237 13 March 2005 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, they come with manuals which we intend to OCR into (probably) HTML. Re Barron's vs others: It varies I think. I'm pretty sure the Barron's German is about the same, except that the first level was retypeset. I believe someone said that Barron's omitted some of the Spanish. Barron's has added some cultural bits but they aren't much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7315 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 29 of 237 14 March 2005 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel that the audio portion is more important because it's harder to find and more expensive, as well as more convenient in digital form. The books, however, are easier to find in libraries and used bookstores (especially online used bookstores) and not necessarily more convenient in digital form. I personally prefer owning hard copies of books rather than reading them on the computer. Another problem is that scanning books is much more involving than encoding mp3s. Still, it would be a shame if we only had the audio converted. Anyway, although I own a few of the books and have access to many others, I can't scan them because I don't have a scanner. That's my main reason for focussing entirely on audio.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 237 15 March 2005 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that we need the text as well. Those who wish to have hard copies can print them and put them in a binder for instance. Commercial FSI releases are quite spartan in that regard anyway.
Scanning the book is not such a problem - we have done it for Mezzofanti, which was much difficult a text than those of FSI. If we get the audio, I'm confident we'll manage to get the texts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7207 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 31 of 237 15 March 2005 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have the complete FSI Swedish course digitised into PDFs and MP3 files. I did not digitise it, I just got it as part of a trade. The course amounts to 768 MB and the quality is very good.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 237 15 March 2005 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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jradetzky, do you know from what source your Swedish course has been digitized?
Is there any (derived) copyright notice on the PDFs? How many hours of sound? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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