[bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:39:04 -0700
I hadn't thought of it, but it does make sense. I hadn't really read very much
about how these more natural-sounding voices work. I knew that they were based
on recorded human speech, but I really hadn't considered much of what happens
beyond that. But it does make sense that they would need more resources than
older types.
I got ViaVoice running, and so far, it is working fine. I am currently keeping
default Kate for messages and ViaVoice for reading.Since I do most reading in
Braille, anyhow, it's not a big deal which voice I use to read with, since I
mainly use it to spot check and make sure things are coming out ok, or read
something short, not a whole book. I do like those VoiceText voices, though.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jake Brownell
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 5:04 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
Hi Evan,
The hard disk reading probably comes from the fact that the program is
putting bits and pieces of recorded human speech together to form words,
phrases and letters.
For instance one word might sound different when read by itself than in a
common phrase. This can happen because the actual phrase was recorded
containing the word, whereas when it's standalone it's put together from
specific consenant and vowel sounds.
These natural voices are not traditional software synthesizers like
elloquence and IBM TTS because they are generated from a much smaller set of
sounds.
Again, this is just a lot of supposition, but supposition that seems to make
sense, grin.
Jake
----- Original Message -----
From: Evan Reese
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 6:50 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
Thanks, Jake, I may try the ViaVoice and see how it works. After playing
with the default voice, though, I'm not sure if it is the voice hogging
resources, or it is that it is not bringing the text into memory as soon as it
is recognized. I have noticed that when arrowing down through something I've
scanned, I hear a lot of disk activity, as though it is getting the text from
disk and not from memory. It responds faster when arrowing up than down.
Also, if I leave it for a minute or so - I didn't time it, but if I, say, go
and read a couple of email messages - and come back to it, it responds as
quickly as any other voice when I arrow down through the document I left open.
Still, I will see what happens with the other voices. I do like the sound
of Kate and Paul, though. I could listen to them read for a long time. They
really sound pretty natural. Once the engineers get the inflection down a
little better, these voices will really sound virtually indistinguishable from
a human voice, I would bet.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jake Brownell
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
Hi Evan,
I find even with a gig of memory that the natural sounding voices can
sometimes be quite sluggish.
I would encourage you to try again the IBM TTS as I believe the Kurzweil
version is newer. They also sound better. In addition Kurzweil has, if memory
serves me correctly, blocked all the character combinations of length 4 from
being passed to IBM if it will crash the engine.
Keep in mind when Kurzweil does crash from either IBM problems or an
internal error, you at most have lost a single page of work. The program will
ask you if you want to open the last file that wasn't properly saved when you
re-enter the product.
Let us know what your experience is.
Jake
----- Original Message -----
From: Evan Reese
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 6:20 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
Thanks, Tiffany, I thought I might have imagined it there, because it
is fully in English now, after I reloaded the program. However, I am not sure
I like this default voice they have. It is very human-sounding, but I have a
3-ghz Pentium with 512 megabytes, but still when I arrow down a page, just
skimming something I put on the scanner, it seems to respond slowly. I may
have to try one of the others and see if it is a little more spritely. I want
to stay away from the ViaVoice engine, however, as that used to crash a lot on
my OpenBook.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tiffany H. Jessen
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 4:13 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Interesting K1000 Problem
On my computers I still only have version eight and nine, and my
friend has version ten, and the two of us both come across this. Not only when
changing settings, but even right in the middle of reading a page.. of English
none-the-less! My computers seem to prefer French and German, while my friend's
changes to something Asian. Neither of us can figure why this happens, because
what's worse, is that we haven't installed any additional languages, so why, or
even how, it changes we don't know. This happens with both the reading and
message voice. Sometimes it's only one or the other, while other times it's
both at once. Usually I cannot undo it, so what I do is save the file based on
my already having memorized the keystrokes, and then I close and reopen the
program. At that point everything goes back to my default settings.
Tiff
----- Original Message -----
From: Evan Reese
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 6:45 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Interesting K1000 Problem
I just installed the K1000 demo, and I was just looking through the
menus to see what was in them. I notice that in the scanning settings, when
changing the delay between repeated scans, and in changing the scanning
brightness, the voice changes and speaks in a foreign language I cannot
identify. Anyone heard of this? I guess I gotta read the manual at some
point, but this seems a little weird. If it is speaking English all the rest
of the time, why would it change languages for just those two settings, at
least those are the only ones I have seen so far. I haven't looked at all of
them, yet. Still, very strange.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.9/417 - Release Date:
8/11/2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.9/417 - Release Date: 8/11/2006
Other related posts:
