Hi, I'd love to be able to understand how ESpeak works well enough to make voices for it that sound better, have better rhythm, and are more intelligible at faster speeds. I don't understand that Phoneme stuff. From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jacques Bosch Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 8:06 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Synthesized Voices: Comments That is exactly what I have found. Natural sounding voices start becoming much more unintelligible than synthetic / robotic sounding voices at high speed.! On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Jared Wright <wright.jaredm@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:wright.jaredm@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote: The problem I've found with most ultra-realistic voices is they sound terrible at high speeds. Which makes sense, no human talks at the rate I have my screen reader at and would sound ridiculous if they did. But I value being able to get through information quickly, so I'll take Eloquence. On 3/10/2011 7:33 AM, Homme, James wrote: Hi, Hi, This is something that is probably very hard to get right. Two of the things that make me stick with Eloquence are that it emphasizes words usually at the correct places, and it pauses in the right spots for punctuation. Even though I like the human voices because they sound like people, I find it difficult to listen to them for more than a few minutes because I have to keep translating emphasis in my head. Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This e-mail and any attachments to it are confidential and are intended solely for use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete it. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not keep, use, disclose, copy or distribute this e-mail without the author's prior permission. The views expressed in this e-mail message do not necessarily represent the views of Highmark Inc., its subsidiaries, or affiliates. __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind -- Jacques Bosch Software Architecture and Development Independent Contractor Cell: +27 824711807 Fax: +27 86 504 4726 E-Mail: jfbosch@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:jfbosch@xxxxxxxxx>