Great text to speech technology here. Anyone know how to do this at home?

[FormerDittoHead]

So I was checking out this report on No Child Left Behind:

http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/sanbernardinocounty/ci_14314436

Play the link toward the upper left "CLICK PLAY TO HEAR STORY!".

You really have to get past the short advertisement and hear the story read to appreciate the quality.

I originally thought it was a recording which has been time-compressed. But then I checked it out to find it was a "robocaster" ( http://www.robocaster.com ) which was used to convert the text to speech.

I am amazed at how far they've taken this.

I couldn't find much on this, however. I've used text to speech devices in the past, but none sounded even being close to the quality of this. The pauses and inflections were better than anything I've ever heard.

Does anyone know of a program that I can buy (and won't cost $100,000) so I could so something like this on my PC?

[jgraz]

1. It's only slightly better than the Mac "Speak Text" feature.

I use that all the time to listen to articles while I'm cooking or working out. The robocaster probably has the luxury of not needing an instant response so it can do a bit more processing.

[FormerDittoHead]

4. I know. "Alex"

Nowhere near the same quality, for my ear. Thanks anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qbuFjqfbuw

[MineralMan]

2. Google text to speech.

Natural Reader has a free version. It's not as good as some really expensive ones in terms of smoothness, but it uses real-sounding voices. It's worth a listen, I think. There are several paid versions, as well. Google will find a bunch of other options.

http://www.naturalreaders.com/

[FormerDittoHead]

3. Yes, that's the kind I'm used to. This other one was quantitatively better.

Windows has had a text to speech facility built in since XP (two versions ago).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306902

Naturalreader, is among many 3rd party programs which use that very same 'engine' only it may offer some bangs and whistles (new voices). However, the podcast from above is simply quantitatively superior.

If you can't hear the difference, then you may want to step away from your PC and try to listen to both versions it as you would listen to the radio.

The common PC versions (which are used in many voice mail systems - AT&T has such software) have so many artifacts and misplaced inflections they distract ones attention and I find it hard to listen to as I might be doing something else as well. (I'm not blind as others may be who are interested in such things. I'm looking to be able to do something else while listening to an audio book, for example)

Thanks for the tip. "Google Text to Speech" - good one, I might not have tried that before posting.

[MineralMan]

5. OK. I was just trying to help. I won't bother you again.

[FormerDittoHead]

6. I suppose the "google x" advice set me off, but I *was* mean about it. Thanks for helping.

I did write: "I couldn't find much on this, however."...

...but I didn't explain that it meant I did google it to find what text-to-speech software this company uses that was so much better than the other things I've used in the past but couldn't find anything.

So I apologize for biting your head off, it's a reflex I've developed, and you were trying to help.

I do have a negative "google x" reflex the same way that I have a "man x" (Linux) response to people thinking that I would post a question without taking those much easier steps first.

But then you don't know me. It's not your fault and you were trying to be helpful.

But if you listened to the sample in the OP, http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/sanbernardinocounty/ci_14314436 - the quality of the voice was head and shoulders above anything else I've heard out there. Just listen to how he says, "San Bernardino"

Common are the programs such as the one offered at http://www.nextup.com for example, and for a premium you could get AT&T's engine:
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

But again, none of these (samples at both sites) are anywhere near the same class as with the OP's podcast.

I should tell you that when I was in college, I used such a program (I forgot which one) to create audio books for some of my text books.

I scanned the pages in, OCR'd them (Omnipage), then ran them through text to speech and recorded them onto cassettes to play in my car while driving.

I was never happy with those recordings, and the AT&T Labs is better, but again, still affected.

This new one by this company http://podcastnewsservice.com (demo at http://podcastnewsservice.com/podcast-demo.aspx passes the critical threshold of allowing me to actually get past the 'funny voice' and listen to the story.

PS: the best automated phone voice system I've encountered BY FAR is Microsoft's "Max" for the Xbox repairs. It's almost worth having your Xbox break to get a chance to use it.

[MineralMan]

9. Not a problem at all.

Getting ideal text to speech seems almost to be an AI thing, since there is so much interpretation when reading aloud, and even meat humans have trouble with it sometimes.

I'm always impressed when someone gets it almost right. I've been messing with it since the late 80s. So far, I've never been fooled by it. The day that I am is the day I know that AI is real.

These days, I just ignore it, except on the Minnesota weather broadcasts. They're done with a pretty primitive T2S system. It's comical, at times. Other than that I don't use it. If I were blind, though, I wouldn't care, as long as it pronounced the words in an understandable way. For the blind or severely vision-impaired, it's a lifesaver.

I implemented a version of it for my father-in-law, who had macular degeneration. He used it to read the New York times after he could no longer see clearly enough, even with huge fonts. He loved it, although he made jokes about the "robot" that was reading to him. Sadly, he is gone, now.

[Fumesucker]

7. Yakitome uses the AT&T text to speech synthesis which is supposed to be the best around..

Yakitome is a free online service but you have to register, I find their conversion to be quite understandable..

http://www.yakitome.com

[FormerDittoHead]

8. VERY interesting. Thanks n/t