That being the case John - I'll leave well alone for now. It seems so far, nothing really improves on Eloquence with JAWS, UNFORTUNATELY! From the little I've actually heard, I think Apple Macs have the most natural voices for screen access software, but I don't really want the learning curve! - Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: john coley To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 1:14 PM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices Hi Andy, apart from ESpeak, which is the NVDA onboard synth, so to speak, which you may well find unacceptable, you can use SAPI5 voices, SVox Pico, which is more human sounding than ESpeak, but not as natural sounding as the SAPI voices, and I seem to remember, following a lot of requests for Eloquence from NVDA users they were going to look into providing it, or rather offering to sell it to users as an optional extra. As I don't use NVDA as a rule I'm out of the loop as far as the current state of play is concerned, but no doubt people on the list who regularly use NVDA will know. John. ----- Original Message ----- From: ANDY COLLINS To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:56 PM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices Perhaps I'll spend a bit of time and see if I can get to grips with NVDA. Which synths/voices are available? - Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Beasley To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 11:58 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices I don't know about other screenreaders, but NVDA has the option to have beeps for capitals. ----- Original Message ----- From: john coley To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 11:39 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices Hi Andy, yes, it's a great shame that they can't find a way of getting the SAPI voices to support pitch. So many people have got used to pitch change denoting capitals. I'm sure those creating these voices could find a way, it's more, I suspect, that they aren't bothered enough to try. It's easy to spot people using SAPI voices, as their capitalisation's out of the window. On your point about Amy's diction she can't say T in a lot of cases either. She says D. Another odd thing about the voices is not only the way they say things, for example world war the second instead of world war 2, but also seemingly made up words they come up with sometimes. I have the Goodmans digi box, and the synth they've used for that can't say x or ex, as in X men or Exfactor. I'd be interested to get from anyone with a Goodmans box who've noticed these made up words to hear their guesses as to what the made up words are. John. ----- Original Message ----- From: ANDY COLLINS To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 10:55 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices Hi John - Shame that. Would it really have been so difficult to have included pitch change with the Ivona voices, and why are there such strange anomalies such as the way Amy yells the letter Y, and pushes some syllables so hard it sounds like she's constipated! - Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: john coley To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 11:29 PM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices Hi Andy, none of those voices support pitch. The same goes for Realspeak and the other human sounding SAPI voices. I've only come across one vaguely human sounding synth that supports pitch, and that was SVox Pico for use with NVDA. John. ----- Original Message ----- From: ANDY COLLINS To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 6:03 PM Subject: [access-uk] Iona voices Hi all - I'm using the Iona voices in demo mode for now, thinking about buying a license. I'm not very impressed with Brian and Emma [uk voices] but Amy [uk] is pretty reasonable, even though I don't like the way she pronounces certain words. I was trying to make changes in JAWS, so that she would speak capitol letters in a higher pitch, the way I am use to under Eloquence, but no matter how much I Play around with this setting, it makes no difference. All letters are read in the same pitch, when reading character by character. The odd thing however, is that when Amy comes across the letter y [case doesn't matter] she seems to yell it out, and in a slightly raised pitch too, as if there is something special about the letter y! Anybody have similar experiences? - Andy __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 7227 (20120617) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com