Speech to text software

DavidUK84

DavidUK84

DavidUK84

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2 Aug 2010
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Text to speech software

Hello. (I've just realised this thread should have read "text to speech").

Can anyone recommend a good programme for this purpose? I'm looking for something that reads as naturally as possible and sounds as much like a human, and as little like a machine as possible. A selection of voices would be an asset too.

Willing to pay for something good. (I know there's a free one on windows, but I wanted something that sounded less like Stephen Hawking!)

Thank you.
 
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Hey I might be able to help you out mate. Whats the purpose of the App?

I'm a software dev and a lil while ago I made a simple program for a collegue that might cover what you want. The premise was that a relative of his had had a stroke and couldn't speak and was elderly so couldnt type, so he wanted a simple touch screen program that could have multiple buttons each with a custom message that when clicked would speak the text out loud. It was using the microsoft TTS (text to speech) libraries so you had a few voices to choose from. all a bit roboty but not terrible.

I can try and dig it out for you if it'll help dude? :)
 
lurkio said:
so you want something to convert speech to text ?

or is it the other way round ?
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry. Text into speech. Should have been clearer about that!


@ Lwills. Thanks very much for the offer, very generous. But I don't want something using the Microsoft standard voices. They're just too "tinny". It's not for a disabled person. A friend of mine has some talent as a story writer, and is considering making some home-made audio books. Unfortunatly they don't know one end of a computer from the other, so I said I'd look into it.
 
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Not a problem mate. It sounds like you're after something like Natural Readers. IIRC they have a demo too so have a bash and see if that helps.

Interesting idea but traditionally, you don't really need anything special to make an audio book though. Just record someone narrating the story (which is hard to beat with any level of tech) and batch ‘em off as nice, small, relatively low bit rate mp3s and distribute on disk or through some secure share like itunes. He's bound to know someone with a clear enough voice who fancies making £20 :) either that or find someone on the net to do it...
 
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