Re: Free TTS engines
- From: "Andreas Stefik" <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:03:51 -0800
People talk quite a bit about how fast they have the TTS engines going.
Would anyone mind posting a couple soundfiles of your screenreader
reading computer code at your "usual" pace? I'm curious how fast folks
typically have it going. I suspect that, in our pilot studies, we have
the TTS engine going way slower than you folks do.
Andreas
On Dec 21, 2007 2:38 PM, tribble <lauraeaves@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Should have read ahead -- thanks Lloyd and all. I agree.
> --le
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lloyd Rasmussen" <lras@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:41 PM
> Subject: RE: Free TTS engines
>
>
>
> Natural Voices, VoiceText, Loquento and other modern synthesizers are
> concatenative, requiring speech segments to be looked up, best match found,
> then interpolated in order to be modeled on a particular human voice and
> sound natural. To adjust their speed, you have to do some more
> interpolation and matching, as you do for time-scale modification of natural
> speech, and this begins to get rough and less intelligible as you go to
> twice normal speed or faster.
>
> The older synthesizers, such as DecTalk, Eloquence and the SSI263 speech
> chip used by Artic, Braille 'n Speak, Votrax, Accent, etc. are formant
> synthesizers. They work on a vocal tract model, and the parameters can be
> varied systematically to alter the speed without creating quite as much
> distortion or losing consonants. Of course they don't sound as natural, but
> this is mostly a hindrance to people who don't spend days and days listening
> to them, for whom speed is more valuable than naturalness. The other
> advantage of the vocal-tract synthesizers is that they don't require as much
> data to be handled, so they work better for echoing individual keystrokes
> than the ponderous concatenative synthesizers. Even on modern computers,
> these speed and responsiveness issues are important.
>
> Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, Maryland
> Home: http://lras.home.sprynet.com
> Work: http://www.loc.gov/nls
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-
> > bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andreas Stefik
> > Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:34 PM
> > To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: Free TTS engines
> >
> > Peter says:
> >
> > > I have several of these voices.
> > > Wonderful sound for reading but to slow for use in a Gui.
> >
> > I say
> >
> > You talking about the AT &T ones? Can't you just speed them up? I know
> > that, on windows at least, there is a slider bar you can adjust. Maybe
> > you mean something else, though. Might not be true for every OS, or
> > every voice though. I readily admit I'm not an expert on such things.
> >
> > Inthane says:
> >
> > I have used the AT&T voices and find them to be the best of the TTS voices
> > that I have herd, (well, except for there attempt to make one sound like a
> > Scotsman, ouch! LOL),
> >
> > I say
> >
> > lol, yaa the Scotsman is hilarious. Well, I guess it's a tough
> > decision on what to get.
> >
> > Thanks for the thoughts, all.
> >
> > Andreas
> >
>
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