[BNU] Re: notetakers and Eloquence speech
- From: Alex Hall <mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "deathdogg@xxxxxxxxx Herrera" <deathdogg@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 12:33:46 -0500
Here are the problems I’ve seen.
1. Eloquence takes up more ram, so units tend to freeze or crash more when
doing memory-intensive tasks like web-browsing while using Eloquence.
2. Speech stutters a lot and does not flow as well.
3. The speech will usually turn a single sentence into two, making it sound as
though there is a period in the middle of a longer chunk of text. This breaks
the flow of the words and sounds very bad.
4. Key echo and other tasks take longer to respond, and Eloquence usually has
to spit out a bunch of characters at a much higher rate than usual when it
tries to echo what a user types. KNG keeps up just fine.
5. There is a very noticeable delay when doing pretty much anything; braille
changes immediately, but speech takes half a second or so to catch up, even if
the task is moving through a menu or list. KNG does not have this lag.
Yes, speech is subjective, and for some the above is not an issue. It is for
me, though, so I refuse to use Eloquence on my Apex. As to a voice being
robotic, I hate to tell you, but every sighted person I know who has heard
Eloquence has said it sounds very robotic and unnatural. What people are used
to nowadays are natural voices such as Nuance or Ivona, since they are used in
mainstream products (Siri, Google Now, voice command systems on phones, and so
on). Eloquence sounds horrible to those not used to it and will set you apart
just as much as any other voice that is not made of pre-recorded speech samples.
On Nov 4, 2013, at 12:12 PM, Ricardo Herrera <deathdogg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Here are some comments on eloquence. Now, everyone has their personal
> preference, but here is something I just don't get.
> When I had my apex, I never, ever had problems with eloquence. It ran
> smoothly, and the speed of my device was not compromised by running this
> speech engine. I'm bringing that up because that is one reason why some don't
> like eloquence on the apex. Everyone that I know personally runs eloquence,
> and I haven't heard of problems because of it, except on this list. Now on to
> my other point, how can people stand that robbotic voice? Kng I mean? When I
> had an mpower for a really short amount of time, that was the voice that it
> had on it. Now back then, I was new to the braille note, and didn't know how
> to change it to eloquence, but the moment I heard kng, I hated it. It sounded
> like a robot, not human at all. It was almost like going back to freedom
> scientific and their lame voices, that at the time sounded great. Actually, I
> think their voice on the really old notetakers such as the braille light were
> much better than kng. Anyway, then I got the apex, and I was happy it had eloq
> uence. Eloquence doesn't sound like a robot. The adult male variant of
> eloquence, which is what most people know, sounds well, perfect. You can't
> hear cracking in the voice, unlike some other voices. That and all the voice
> over voice on iOS and some of the best out there, which is why I got the
> eloquence voice for nvda. Now espeak sounds like a robot too.
> The thing I find with having robotic voices is that when you're in a public
> setting and someone happens to hear it, they'll automatically know and mark
> you as the blind person with a robot doing your work. However, with a more
> human sounding voice, which seems to be the trend nowadays, people are less
> likely to think of you as such. They'll just think of it as a pda, not a
> robot doing your tasks. And yes, computers are technically, but really, when
> was the last time you thought of computers as such? (you in second person)
> All that I have outlined above is all subjective, and as I said, it is a
> matter of personal preference. I'd be very interested to know why people hate
> eloquence so much and get some additional feedback. It really is one of the
> best synthesizers out there in my opinion, and I hope that development
> continues, although there really isn't much else to do to it except fix
> problems with pronunciation in other languages. Ok, now, feedback!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Terri Pannett <pann1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: b.lingard@xxxxxxxxxxxx,"'bn list'" <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Monday, November 4, 2013 8:51
> Subject: [BNU] notetakers and Eloquence speech
>
>>
>>
>> I changed the subject line to start a new thread but reply to your message.
>>
>> I don't care for Elloquence speech and I always preferred KeyNote Gold
>> speech when I had my Apex qt. But for those of you who like it, the HIMS
>> notetakers support Elloquence quite well. I don't understand why HumanWare
>> can't fix it so their notetakers would do the same thing.
>> Terri, Amateur Radio Call Sign KF6CA.
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Brian Lingard" <b.lingard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: "'bn list'" <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 5:31 AM
>> Subject: [BNU] Re: Note on Recent Spam Posts
>>
>>
>>> Ottawa Canada
>>>
>>> Dear Alex and List:
>>>
>>> The spammer's misspelling of Wednesday did not seem to affect the
>>> Eloquence in
>>> my JAWS 15. Hooray!
>>>
>>>
>>> But if his crash words caused your BrailleNote, Voice note or Apex running
>>> Eloquence to crash it gets old very quickly/.
>>>
>>> Brian
>>>
>>>
>>> -------------------------------
>>> BNU: BrailleNote Users — a forum for users of BrailleNote family of
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>>
>> -------------------------------
>> BNU: BrailleNote Users — a forum for users of BrailleNote family of products
>> from Humanware.
>> Website: www.braillenoteusers.info
>>
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>
> Sent from my Braille Sense u2 through primary email address (deathdogg)
> -------------------------------
> BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of products
> from Humanware.
> Website: www.braillenoteusers.info
>
> IMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel that
> your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all" feature in
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>
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Have a great day,
Alex (msg sent from Mac Mini)
mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx
-------------------------------
BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of products
from Humanware.
Website: www.braillenoteusers.info
IMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel that
your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all" feature in
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