The Next Generation, An Unboxing And First Look At the Victor Reader Stream 3 From Humanware
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- Today I have a very special unboxing for you all. Last week, Humanware officially released the 3RD Generation of the Victor Reader Stream, probably the most popular talking book player. Mine arrived today and in this video, we unbox it and take a first look at the changes. There is a lot to love about this new model, including Bluetooth, USB-C, and faster download speeds. There are however, a few glitches that I am sure Humanware Will resolve as quickly as possible. Come along with me on this journey as I explore this new and exciting device and see some of my reaction to the various new features. Happy reading.
Hi! Thank you so much for this nice video!
I'm the product manager at Humanware for the Victor Reader Stream. :)
A couple things I wrote down as I watched it!
- Custom sleep timers were taken out last minute juste before the launch, they were acting a bit wonky. We are looking at reintroducing them later this year.
- Voice management doesn't work quite yet, you only have the two voices (Sharona and Will), but it will come with the March update, which will also bring other languages.
- For now you can't change the menu voice, it's only Sharona. But once we have the voice management in March, you'll be able to swap the system language and the reading voice.
- Your crash when creating a note was a bit surprising, but not by that much. Notes was one of the last thing we worked on, so we knew there may be a couple things that might need refining there. Definitely parts of the kinks I mentioned in previous messages and podcasts that we'll improve in future updates.
I was impressed at how quickly you picked up the new menu structure!
Loved the video, thank you so much :)
Mathieu Paquette
Product Manager
Humanware
I enjoyed this video as well. I don't know how I feel about all the menus using the TTS voice now, especially since I don't like any of The Voice options that currently exist. Hopefully, by the time I can afford the stream, things will have changed significantly and we will have better choices for voices. :-) just curious, though. Why are the menus using TTS now? Is there a special reason that the normal menu voice had to go away?
@@melissahoppe579 Hi Melissa! Fair question!
The reason we switched over to TTS for the menu is that it is much easier to maintain. Human narrated voices for menus require a lot of recording, and each time we want to change something, we need to go through recording, and if for any reason the original voice actor we took isn't available, we need to start everything from scratch again, etc.
This just allows to use your favorite voice to read everything. And yes, more voices are coming, including Lily, a pretty good American TTS female voice that I think you'll like! We're adding quite a few more voices in the next month.
Thank you!
Will you be adding Ryan as the menu voice, like what has been used in the first and second generations? I love that voice and will miss it if it is no longer an option!
Thanks Mathieu. I’m so glad I was able to get this video out, I had a lot of fun putting it together. And thank you for the great info, looking forward to installing future software updates. ☺️
Mathieu provided a great explanation for the change. The other advantage I will add is that it is now possible to speed up the menu voice. If you are used to using fast speech, this can really be a timesaver as you look for content and interact with the device. I thought I would miss the pre-recorded menus, but I don’t.
Thanks so much! I just received my new Victor Stream and was able to set up NLS Bard, NFB Newsline, WIFI, and date and time. A great start!
Thanks so much for the video!!! I cannot wait to hear the comparison between the two streams!!
Thank you very much for this. Really appreciate it, I listened all the way through and enjoyed your style thoroughly. Thoroughly. I would be most grateful to see a download speed comparison, that is what I am most excited about by a mile
Thank you so much for this video, Cullen. You made my day. I'm hoping to get my hands on one of these next month. I'm going to talk to talk to to my mom about purchasing it. I want one so bad. For those that are curious, I've also confirmed with HumanWare that the Trek still is and will continued to be supported and is not going away. The stream is for people who do not want a victor reader and a GPS on the same device. Keep these awesome videos coming. Have a great day.
You will love it. Have so enjoyed using mine this week.
Are you going to be doing some more demos of some of the features? I am hoping to talk to my mom about purchasing it tonight. Do you have a case with yours, or will that be coming out shortly?
I don’t.think in needs one, is supposed to be more adorable, but I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking about getting one too.
In fact, you did touch on my question, heck, you answered it, later on in the video. Thank you. I really wish I would've found this video earlier.
I am a former teacher and watching this video and you demonstrating everything here you get a gold star for your first time out. I really and truly enjoyed the video and I cannot wait to get my fingers on my new Victor Stream three good job, sir. 52:59
Hi Cullin, i'm so happy to say my stream 3 is ariving tomorrow between 9:00 AM to 1:00 GMT here in the UK. I am going to record my unboxing on my stream 2.
Oh wow! I wasn't expecting Humanware to release a 3rd generation Stream. Also, those Wi-Fi options seem familiar, because I have an APH Mantis, and they are the same options on the Mantis. Also I noticed the startup beep is different.
I'm in the market for an audio media player so this is a useful preview. I'll give this a listen. Thanks!
I was hoping you would try to connect a Bluetooth headset just to show how Bluetooth connects to a headset. Please add that in your next video of the 3rd generation? Great video overall, though!
54:52 I agree! Would love to see how a Bluetooth headset could be paired. Great video, awesome job!
Stay tuned, hoping to have a video demonstration of Bluetooth out this week. If not this week, definitely next week.
Loved the video, but also was not expecting a third generation model of the Victor Reader Stream
Maybe the license thing means licenses for book services, like NLS bar, and books share. Of course, I don’t know either because I don’t have that stream, that’s what I’m thinking though.
Thank you for your review. I just purchased this and while I am very happy with the hardware, the software has many major problems. Why don’t books remember the place where you stopped? Why don’t files add to the SD card in alphabetical order? They are on patch 1.2 and haven’t fixed these major problems yet. I spoke to technical help and I’m very disappointed in the fact that I might need to wait another month to be able to use my product. This has been out for 11 months and they still haven’t resolved these major issues. That’s very disappointing for a company that usually is so on top of accessibility.
I agree totally, the loss of reading position on this new unit is most infuriating, so infuriating for me that I stopped using the unit until version 1.3.1 came out recently, The latest firmware version has addressed the reading position bug, but I still feel the unit needs more time to mature before I feel that it's truly ready for prime time. One new feature of the latest firmware that I really truly like is the suspend mode. You can now put the unit into a suspend or sleep mode when you turn it off as opposed to shutting it completely down, this is fantastic, because I do find this new unit to be very sluggish at starting up, compared to the previous versions. Amazingly, the suspend mode actually works as advertised and I haven't had too many problems with it. I think things are improving, but boy was I deeply disappointed when I received my Stream 3 last August. I feel that HumanWare should have delayed releasing the Stream 3 until it was ready. It's still missing a few minor features found in previous generations of Stream products.
Could you do a comparison between this and the SensePlayer? Maybe you have an I just haven’t seen it yet. Totally understand if you aren’t able to.
I so wish I could, would love to get one and explore it. Unfortunately it won’t happen for quite a while, if at all.
So I know I'm 6 months late but I got a SensePlayer for my birthday last week and as a former victor reader user I'm so glad I went with the SensePlayer. So much better.
What do you like about the Sense player over the Victor stream?
I am looking for an audio player, too.
Hi Tyler, what do you like about the Sense player over the streem3 , I’m looking between the two.
@@jonlaguerre3163 Well sense it runs Android you can take advantage of other types of media than Humanware would ever be able to support with their closed off software. Yeah Humanware got lucky with TuneIn and Audible and yes it can play books from NLS and Learning Allie as well as bookshare but can your stream access Spotify? How about Netflix or Hulu? What about Apple Music? Nope. But my SensePlayer can. Yeah you do still have to use the sometimes clunky android app interfaces but it still allows me to have a dedicated book and music device that will stay up to date and be able to be expanded with new apps way easier. Also it has better built in apps. Can your stream be an FM radio? Nope. Does your stream have an alarm clock, timer, or stopwatch? Nope. How about the ability to use any folder structure you want? Nope. What about support for USB based audio devices? Again, no. What about a built in pretty good stereo microphone? No. I could go on and on. Just get the SensePlayer.
These products only get better
Great demo as always. I'm sad there's only 16 GB internal storage in 2023 and the battery is a dealbreaker. I would have expected at least 128 GB given both the current times and high price. Just a few things to keep in mind for the next version.
I totally get where you’re coming from. The one thing I will say though is that the battery on this new Stream is absolutely incredible. It has yet to completely die on me, and it charges up very quickly. If having the battery built into the device makes it that much more reliable, which has been my experience, I can absolutely live with that. In terms of the internal memory, I guess I’ve never been super worried about that as using an SD card works perfectly fine. That’s just my opinion though.
@@gallagher123123 I understand the SD card, but I would have liked to have more internal space. Not only would it give you more room to always keep more content on the device, but it should potentially allow more room for more future features. Oh well, I've come to expect this from Humanware. I can't justify the products if they continue to be this underpowered. I hope you enjoy your unit and I'm happy to know downloads are significantly faster.
Would you switch to Hims?
Why don’t they give it more internal memory?, and if the battery is built inside the device like a smart phone, why don’t they just sign a contract with the Apple Store or Best Buy to have them replaced the battery so you don’t have to so people don’t have to ship the players back-and-forth and spend all that money and all that long time.
@@jonlaguerre3163 HIMS makes superior products. Claiming the reason the Stream battery is internal because everyone else does it is really stupid. They could have made a removable battery, but they want people to pay more money for both battery replacements, as well a sshipping the device somewhere to have it done. I have 2 batteries for my SensePlayer and I can get about 20 to 24 hours of usage between them. The reason they probably won't contract with local stores is because the Stream is a proprietary product that's only of interest to a very small group of people.
I’ve always kind of wanted one of these, just to have one, but I don’t really understand the appeal. Number one you’re smart phone will do everything the stream will do and number two the one thing that it needs is a dictation feature because manually typing in letters is not as you said the standard way of entering Text anymore and it hasn’t been since about 2007. That is so ancient.😂
love it came out
hi its bill from canada. just wondered if you were able to connect the victor reader stream to an echo device? it would be nice if you were able to do it.?
I wish I had watched this video before I opened my victor reader stream three. It would have given me a better idea of what to expect. I'm liking it so far, but there's one thing I'm struggling to figure out. I don't know if you will touch on it in this video, or if there is another video about it made by you or someone else, or if I will have to call Humanware tech-support next week to get it figured out, but I am not done researching. Anyway, thank you for this informative video.
Hi Annie, what made you go with Humanware over Hims?
@@jonlaguerre3163 actually, I got the hymns player first, but I've had the Humanware players for a couple of years now and, to tell you the truth, I seem to like them more. I certainly use them more. I do have both devices, though. And, I will say, I like the Samantha voice better than the Sharona voice. I haven't tried going online and changing the voices yet on the stream , but I might.
@@Anne-V. have you looked at the Sense player from Hims, i’m looking between that one and the Victor stream three what do you like about the Human Wair ones better than the hymns ones
@@jonlaguerre3163 I actually have the sense player, but I don't use it as much. To tell you the truth, I do a lot of radio recordings, and you can't do that with the sense player. The sense player has a earphone jack, but not an auxiliary jack, which I appreciated. There's nothing overtly wrong with the sense player, but I just seem to prefer the streams. I have to admit, the stream three has its pros and cons too. The audio quality is definitely much better when you record on the stream three, but there's what I think is this nasty bug where on some radio streams, as soon as you hit the record button, the unit crashes. I hope that's a bug that they will figure out how to fix.
My Stream 3 arrived today, it's working, but my God the current firmware version isn't good, I'm running firmware version 1.1.0, and after reading some of the comments below, including the things Mathieu said, I should consider myself lucky I never used the first firmware version. I will say though, as I said to someone else below, if the speaker on my Stream 2 hadn't stopped working last week and if that unit was still under warranty, I would have not bought the new one. I've experienced a few bugs already today and I've written to Humanware about them. Hopefully they'll address them.
Look at Hims.
@@jonlaguerre3163 The SensePlayer is very expensive, much more expensive than the Stream 3.
I don’t know if doing this would be feasible for you, but it would be cool to see some thing like what you did when the second GEN came out, as far as comparisons and things like that. People are kind of judging me, because I would rather have one of these, then be stuck reading on my phone. I’ve gotten to the point where I hate reading things on my phone because they keep getting interrupted.
I am absolutely planning on doing a comparison series.
I use my iPhone but I’ve been a stream user since the first one so I said do it works for you. I use the stream for all sorts of stuff. In fact to be frank, it truly is the only blindness product I continuously keep up with and get a new one for.
Nice vid, have you ever used a Hims player before?
Hi Miranda, have you ever used a hymns player before
@@mirandaoakley3662 have you ever used a hymns player before
Is there anyway you can do a video on how to authorize the third generation stream for NLS bard? I’m not sure how to do that.
One more thing
Will the new menu structure be coming to the 2nd generation Stream, along with the Will voice? In my opinion, I would rather have Will, then Ryan
I'm hoping that the Tracey voice becomes available at some point. In general, I have never been a fan of the acappella voices, but then again, I use Alex for virtually everything that I possibly can these days.
Hi!
The Stream has now reached its end of life. There will not be an update.
Certain voices that are used on the Stream 3 would probably not fit well on the Stream 2 either, on account of it being older hardware.
Mathieu Paquette
Product Manager
Humanware
My comment above should read "The Stream *2* has now reached its end of life", not just the Stream. The Stream in general is still very much alive and well. :)
I was disappointed to learn that Stream 3 doesn't support Audible. That is essential for me.
With the latest firmware, yes it does, but you can't access Audible via the onboard Wi-Fi, you must connect it to a computer and use the Audible Sync software to get books onto the unit.
@@Lachlant1984 Awesome! Thanks.
Will it connect to bluetooth hearing aids?
That’s a good question Malissa, I’m wondering if it can also connect to Braille displays.
@@jonlaguerre3163 I highly doubt it'll connect to a Braille display, the Bluetooth support only supports audio devices such as headphones and speakers. As for Bluetooth hearing aids, I don't know.
does the new stream have bluetooth
yes. it has bluetooth on it.
It sure does. Stay tuned, hope to have a demonstration of Bluetooth out very soon.
Do you know what version of Bluetooth the victor stream has on it? I know that the iPhone 14 Pro has Bluetooth 5.3, and I was wondering if the new Victor reader was that good
LOL I still have a first-generation Stream, although I haven't used it since I got an iPod Touch and later an iPad. While this is certainly interesting I don't know that I could see myself getting one now that I have said iPad, particularly since it can do Audible and this new Stream can't from what I've been hearing. I do like that you can use SD cards of up to 1TB though and the speaker and voice sounded pretty darn good. At least she doesn't sound like she lives in a tin can anymore.
they mentioned that audible should be coming in the next month or 2. yep.
@@driza97 I heard about that, but I had heard that that was only for the second generation. Maybe whoever said that got it wrong, at least I would certainly hope so.
@@Bryan198026 Hi Bryan!
Audible is already available on the Stream 2 and has been for a long time. And it will be coming on the Stream 3 in the next few months, barring any major technical hurdles, but we are working alongside Audible to get support soon!
Mathieu Paquette
Product Manager
Humanware
It’s definitely coming, I am also looking forward to it.
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