From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from plane.gmane.org (plane.gmane.org [80.91.229.3]) by speech.braille.uwo.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9410FC1A07E for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2012 20:43:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1StTE6-0001me-0l for speakup@braille.uwo.ca; Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:43:50 +0200 Received: from jdc.jasonjgw.net ([59.167.198.218]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:43:49 +0200 Received: from jason by jdc.jasonjgw.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:43:49 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca From: Jason White Subject: Re: hardware or software synths Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:43:38 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <605aa805-88a8-42d0-b375-3112b58573ac@email.android.com> X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: jdc.jasonjgw.net X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Originator: jason@jdc.jasonjgw.net (Jason White) X-BeenThere: speakup@braille.uwo.ca X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:43:51 -0000 Kyle wrote: >While I agree regarding the standard FestVox voices that come with Festival, >it does offer a framework that allows much more understandable voices to be >installed and used instead. Also, I find eSpeak to be of much higher quality, >easier to understand, available at a much lower price and much better >maintained than IBMTTS, ViaVoice, TTSynth, Voxin or whatever they're calling >that old broken down Jaws voice these days, and that's completely putting >aside for the moment that both Festival and eSpeak are completely free and >open source, meaning that you have the freedom to fix what you don't like >about them. Pico is also open source, although from what I understand, there >is a bit of a problem making new voice data or something. The sources of the voice files are available but the tools to convert them to binary files exist only as MS-Windows executables. these don't include the machine learning algorithms needed to build new voices. there is a need for better-quality free/opens-ource speech synthesis software. Either someone will write it, or someone will release a previously proprietary system under an open licence.