longenough for you to get a sense of the flow with longer text, you
canemail me for some samples in mp3 format. I tried to include my
emailbefore but it just blanks out the punctuation. So I will spell outthe
punctuation, and you will know to just insert the actual symbolsinstead. My
email is:
software dotliberators at slmail dot me
To A:
If there is enoughinterest in this project to make it official, then the
goal is tomake Readspeakr voices available to any of the most widely
usedDistros that have Orca or Speakup. Similar to how Voxin offers
Nuancevoices that you can install on most Distros with screenreaders.
Yes, Readspeakerdoes offer both Swedish and Finnish along with many other
languages.
Please click on thelink I included at the top of this email. On that page,
you will seea combo box to select your language for a demo. Scroll up in
thatcombo box and you will find Swedish and Finnish, then, once youselect
the language, tab down, and press enter on "listen".
To the person whosuggested further platforms of usage such as Mac
terminals and Linuxon Windows, I appreciate the suggestion and this is
certainlysomething to look into.
Personally I onlyhave experience with stand alone Windows, and stand alone
Linux.
I really don't knowanything about the workings of Mac OS, but if a Mac
terminal runs onLinux compatible software, then it might be possible to
incorporateReadspeaker voices. However, with Mac, I'm assuming you're
dealingwith Apple and whatever protocols they have as a company to
approveof third party TTS providers. That is an avenue that I am really
notfamiliar with, but if anyone hear is a Mac afficionado withexperience
with Apple's protocols for approving third partyproviders, please feel free
to share that knowledge with me.
Mac and Windowsalready have so many natural sounding speech options
available thatI'm really focusing on trying to bring Readspeaker to Linux
inparticular, to give Linux users more choices for natural soundingspeech.
So if Apple already provides natural voices for the Macterminal, then it
may be better to focus solely on stand alone Linuxsystems.
However, it seemsthat the Linux on Windows that you speak of, should be
able toutilize these voices if its essentially still Linux software.
I'm still open toany ideas about Mac terminal and Linux on Windows, its
just that Idon't have any experience with that, I don't know if there
arealready existing natural voices for them seeing as it seems to be Linux
software but running on top of Mac or Windows, but any input on that would
be great.
To Chime:
We might be able torequest Heather if we get enough interest to get this
project up andgoing. Although the only place where I have seen Heather
utilized isin their web-reader solutions which are a bit different from
theirLinux compatible SDK. They do offer the option to have
customizedvoices though, so we might be able to request Heather if we
reallywant that. Personally, for US English I like the Julie voice which
isavailable to demo on the Readspeaker site, as well as the Sophievoice
which is what they used to record that mp3 file for Consoleusers that you
listened to.
Let me know if youever end up finding any samples of the Voxygen Hypra
voices, I'd liketo know what they sound like in English and I havn't found
any Hyprasamples either.
To Debin Prater:
Thanks for theinput.
I'm a beginnerso I don't have experience with the Emacspeak servers you
speak of.But if we move forward with a project with Readspeaker, the
goalwould be to offer the voices for the most widely used Distros
thatinclude Orca or Speakup for people to install the voices and use on
their localsystem.
I really havn'tsmoothed out the finite details on that as to how exactly
the interface making Readspeaker available for Linux screenreaders would
work in terms of the technicalities. For example, how to make it available
both for Debian based systems and for something like Arch, just throwing
out examples. But Voxin has done it with Nuance, so it should be doable
with Readspeaker and the guys at Readspeaker are apparently willing to
consider developing an interface to make it possible, as long as there is
enough interest in the community, and so long as it would be commercially
viable for them.
My first step is to simply find out ifthere is any interest, which, it
seems like there is a small handful here on this list that would be
interested.
Other Consolereaders might be considered as well, and would be mentioned
in an officialsurvey before actually getting started on the project, to
determinewhat is the most popular Console screenreader for Linux users
andstart with that. Hopefully offering voices for Orca graphical, and
atleast the most widely used Console reader. I know there's quite a
fewConsole readers out there, but we'd have to really decide where
thedevelopers at Readspeaker would focus their time and effort intomaking
their Linux compatible interface to bring Readspeaker voicesto
screenreaders.
I think startingwith Orca for Graphical, and then one Console Reader,
would be good.
Havn't even gotteninto Emacs yet, but if that uses a seperate screenreader
and iswidely used, then that would be something to consider including
ifpossible. I'm just trying to cover the basics of something forgraphical,
and something for console. As far as I know, isn't Emacslike a text editor
and used for programming etc? Do people also useit like a screenreader to
access daily tasks on Linux instead of OrcaOr Espeakup?
To Didier:
Wow, didn't know youalso reached out to Readspeaker as an Ivona
distributor back in theday. Good to know. Its too bad that something can't
be done to bringIvona to Linux seeing as one of their original pages said
that anIvona SDK was compatible. But when I asked them, I got the
sameresponse that Ivona is linked with Amazon now so Ivona is not an option.
I'm not the only oneto inquire. You asked them years before me, and I
wouldn't besurprised if we're not the only ones to ask for Ivona.
Quitefrustrating that Ivona is not more open to collaborating
foraccessibility solutions on multiple platforms. Even from a
strictlybusiness standpoint, Ivona could make additional proffits from
selling solutions to Linux users. Oh well.
As for theReadspeaker brand voices, when I contacted them, they did say
thatthey usually only sell to businesses, not individuals; but they
saidthat in this case, they would be willing to consider developing
aninterface to bring Readspeaker voices to Linux screenreaders providedthat
there is enough interest in the community, and that it would becommercially
viable. Thats why I'm trying to get a baseline ofinterest, to see if its
worthwhile to try to move forward with this.
To Francisco:
Yes, I totally agreewith you. Thats why I started this endeavor, first
trying to bringIvona to Linux but that didn't work out. Now trying to
bringReadspeaker's own brand of voices to Linux. I too want to see
morenatural sounding voices become available to Linux. Allowing Linuxusers
to have a similar range of natural TTS choices as Windowsusers, and in
return, more people may decide to give Linux a try.
Thanks to all forthe inquiries, hope I was able to answer at least some of
yourquestions, feel free to keep asking questions or sharing ideas, andfor
those of you who missed the link the first time around, please dotry
listening to the demos available on Readspeaker's web page.
Thanks,
SL
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