I’ve always wanted to mess with or own a Stratus 12M. The Classic Victor Readers aren’t common here in the U.S since they were CD based and our natonal library never distributed books on CD, we jumped from cassette tapes to NLS Cartrages (flash drives in custom enclosures) so we never really needed a CD unit.
In 2021 I bought on eBay what claimed to be a Stratus 12M, but turned out to be a Victor Reader Classic X Plus. SO yeah, big letdown.
Aye, we gotta learn lessons at some point, case and point my lesson about the power supply on the 1st gen (though it was actually my fathers decision to find a power cord in the junk drawer). I’m not sure when that version is from, the release notes and file downloads are not dated, but I think it’s at least two years old, probably even more.
When I borrowed the stream 2 10 years ago when I was about to update the firmware, ah I made that mistake on turning off the power during the middle of update installation and it turns out that I lost speech, so in this case, I have to return the demo unit back. I know I’m not going to repeat the same mistakes again if I’m ever gonna get a new stream two or three. Bear in mind that I was 10 back then and my lesson learned from it once I think back from it.
Also if you go back to a Stream 1 today, wear gloves. A lot of devices from the 2000s, including the first gen Stream used a rubber texture coating on the plastic, it gave it a premium feel in its day, but this coating has since turned to goop, so Stream 1s are really sticky and gross, you have to use alcohol or something to get it off the plastic. Sadly, it could be worse. There’s a slightly obscure handheld game console from 2005 called the Tiger Telematics Gizmondo, and along with having ties to the Sweedish Mafia, it’s case was entirely made from this rubber coating matterial, so Gizmondos are literally melting!
The first gen Stream was all right for its day, but there were a lot of bizarre choices made in its design. For instance, while it has a USB MiniAB port, it can only charge over a barrel jack (this is how my childhood Stream 1 was killed), by default it can only record audio in the super obscure AMRWB+ codec, with MP3 and WAV recording being a paid upgrade, and it had an adapter you could buy that would let you use NLS digital talking book cartrages by slotting them into the back of the unit, but you couldn’t put the Stream in its case with this module on the back, and it wasn’t even required, you could connect NLS cartrages with the short USB cable. Also, to change SD cards, you had to remove the Stream 1 from its carrying case.
Audible is used for the Audible service owned by Amazon, http://www.audible.com. If yu buy books from Audible they’re in an encrypted format, and to play them you have to copy a file over using the HumanWare Companion app.
25 responses to “the last question I have about the victor reader stream 2”
Yep.
right.
Oh boy Xander that is not good.
Yeah I get what you’re saying.
I’ve always wanted to mess with or own a Stratus 12M. The Classic Victor Readers aren’t common here in the U.S since they were CD based and our natonal library never distributed books on CD, we jumped from cassette tapes to NLS Cartrages (flash drives in custom enclosures) so we never really needed a CD unit.
In 2021 I bought on eBay what claimed to be a Stratus 12M, but turned out to be a Victor Reader Classic X Plus. SO yeah, big letdown.
Nice!
I also have a Victor reader Stratus12 which has a numeric keypad.
But the readers are good! As I mentioned in charles’s blog, I messed it up so many times it said media error. But I was only very young.
That’s the Victor Classic. I have that as well when I was three years old.
Wow! So much info! I have not had a streem before, just a victor reader.
Is the stream two was made back in 2013? I guess so because I first heard about a stream back in 2014.
Aye, we gotta learn lessons at some point, case and point my lesson about the power supply on the 1st gen (though it was actually my fathers decision to find a power cord in the junk drawer). I’m not sure when that version is from, the release notes and file downloads are not dated, but I think it’s at least two years old, probably even more.
When I borrowed the stream 2 10 years ago when I was about to update the firmware, ah I made that mistake on turning off the power during the middle of update installation and it turns out that I lost speech, so in this case, I have to return the demo unit back. I know I’m not going to repeat the same mistakes again if I’m ever gonna get a new stream two or three. Bear in mind that I was 10 back then and my lesson learned from it once I think back from it.
Thanks for answering my questions. I was wondering what year was the last update to the stream 2?
The Stream 2’s last firmware update was V4.8.15 and is several years old. HumanWare’s kinda quick to abandon these units.
Is the stream 2 and one is still receiving updates?
Nice info. Yeah I like the stream too and upwards.
Also if you go back to a Stream 1 today, wear gloves. A lot of devices from the 2000s, including the first gen Stream used a rubber texture coating on the plastic, it gave it a premium feel in its day, but this coating has since turned to goop, so Stream 1s are really sticky and gross, you have to use alcohol or something to get it off the plastic. Sadly, it could be worse. There’s a slightly obscure handheld game console from 2005 called the Tiger Telematics Gizmondo, and along with having ties to the Sweedish Mafia, it’s case was entirely made from this rubber coating matterial, so Gizmondos are literally melting!
The first gen Stream was all right for its day, but there were a lot of bizarre choices made in its design. For instance, while it has a USB MiniAB port, it can only charge over a barrel jack (this is how my childhood Stream 1 was killed), by default it can only record audio in the super obscure AMRWB+ codec, with MP3 and WAV recording being a paid upgrade, and it had an adapter you could buy that would let you use NLS digital talking book cartrages by slotting them into the back of the unit, but you couldn’t put the Stream in its case with this module on the back, and it wasn’t even required, you could connect NLS cartrages with the short USB cable. Also, to change SD cards, you had to remove the Stream 1 from its carrying case.
I like the second and third one. I haven’t tried the first one.
Well Mat, out of all 3 streems, whitch ones do you like?
yep.
Nice.
NLS-BARD books (and anything DAISY) will be stored on the Talking Books bookshelf in the $VRDTB folder.
Audible is used for the Audible service owned by Amazon, http://www.audible.com. If yu buy books from Audible they’re in an encrypted format, and to play them you have to copy a file over using the HumanWare Companion app.