MP3 Software Pro's and Con's Guide
By Daniel Lamb & Ray Tam

February, 2002
Adaptech Project, Dawson College, Montreal, Canada

To give an idea of system requirements here are the results of a test we carried out. All three products rendered similar results. We converted a Word document of 91kb (approximately 36 pages) to an MP3 with a file size almost 32MB, which can be played on a standard MP3 player with 32 Mb of memory. 20 documents of similar size could be burned onto a 650 Mb CD. If MP3 files are converted to WAV format, they will be approximately three times the size of an MP3 file (i.e., instead of 32 Mb MP3 audio data, 94 Mb of WAV audio data).

Doc Reader
Pros
- can open several doc formats, not just text files
- good quality voices
- built-in mp3 player program
- files can be qued up in a playlist
- built-in document viewer

Cons
- must record in real time
- no screen reader mode
- no french available
- simplistic interface
- customizable voice settings are sparse

ISpeak
Pros
- files can be qued up in a playlist
- screen reader mode
- customizable voice settings

Cons
- must record in real time
- no downloadable voices
- no french available
- can only open txt files

TextAloud
Pros
- customizable voice settings
- screen reader mode
- files can be qued up in a playlist
- downloadable voices
- several languages available including French
- can record in accelerated mode
- clipboard monitoring

Cons
- can only open text files
- voice quality could be much better