Speech to text freeware

  • Thread starter Thread starter User
  • Start date Start date
U

User

Does anyone know of the best and most natural sounding speech to text reader
freeware? For example, you can go to Project Gutenburg, download a book and
have the software read it to you. I would like something without a robot
voice, lol.

Later,
Thank You in advance.
 
User said:
For example, you can go to Project Gutenburg, download a book and
have the software read it to you. I would like something without a robot
voice, lol.
Click to expand...

so you think of a text to speech software?
 
Most speech programs use MS Agent technology. The "naturalness" of the voice
will depend on the speech engine and whether the program or Agent can use
this engine.

The default engine downloadable from Microsoft has a large number of voices,
but only two or three sound natural to me. For example, the default voice
used by MS Agent James and Genie both use American male voice #1 which isn't
too bad.

The most natural speech engine I have heard is the British Female voice --
you can download it here:
http://www.text-to-speech.net/voices.html
You can also get the Mary, Mike & Sam engine here -- the one used by
programs such as Read Please.

Of course, your program or agent has to be able to call up the engine. Most
agent characters by default use the standard MS Agent voices. Some programs
such as Cyber Buddy (www.thecyberbuddy.com) will let you choose the voice to
be used by the program, but for every other program I've encountered you are
stuck with whatever the program calls up by default.

If anyone has a way of changing the TTS called up by an agent, I would be
interested in hearing about it. I haven't found anyway to decompile /
recompile an Agent that would allow me to change the TTS. And I don't have
the time to build up my own character from the ground up.

Cyberbuddy is a neat program. It's freeware that normally resides in your
sys tray -- it will read files, pop up with reminders, inspirational
thoughts, etc. You coiuld even design little "mini-plays" with MS Agent
characters giving it some entertainment value as well.

It's drawback is that it also reads news headlines, stocks etc and wants to
phone into these sites. I never found a way to stop this behaviour, even
when I unchecked all these options. Furthermore, the program consumes 10 to
12 megs RAM while open in your tray. On general principles I didn't want to
give up this much memory for a program that I didn't use all that often.

Hope this is info is helpful.

-M-
 
User said:
Does anyone know of the best and most natural sounding speech to text reader
freeware? For example, you can go to Project Gutenburg, download a book and
have the software read it to you. I would like something without a robot
voice, lol.
Click to expand...

If you use Windows,I believe that MS has a text-to-speach kit in its
"accessibility" extensions. Should be available somewhere on their site, in the
support section.

DAN
 
User said:
Does anyone know of the best and most natural sounding speech to text reader
freeware? For example, you can go to Project Gutenburg, download a book and
have the software read it to you. I would like something without a robot
voice, lol.

Later,
Thank You in advance.
Click to expand...

SayPad uses the MS speech stuff also, but I mention it only because of
your referance to Project Gutenburg. SayPad is the only txt2speech
converter that allows you to stipulate 'chapter deliniators'. After
telling SayPad where to break the chapters, it can automagically convert
the one MASSIVE Gutenburg text into a set of mp3s, one per chapter,
which is cool.

When I messed around with this I DID have a problem with SayPad often
missing the chapter breaks by a paragraph or so. If anyone has made it
work right I'd like to know how, too.

Regards,
S
 
Thanks ML.

I tried the MS one a few years ago and found it hugely bloated. If I don't
find anything better, I'll revisit.

Good try Reverend, but the web site does not say that that prog will run on
my OS - Win2K Pro - all windozes but.

Thanks anyway.

Enjoy the week :-)

S.
 
Shadow said:
Thanks ML.

I tried the MS one a few years ago and found it hugely bloated. If I don't
find anything better, I'll revisit.

Good try Reverend, but the web site does not say that that prog will run on
my OS - Win2K Pro - all windozes but.

Thanks anyway.

Enjoy the week :-)
Click to expand...

I'm still not clear what you guys are talking about.

*Speech to text* means that you talk and words appear in your word
processor or text editor.

*Text to speech* means that you open a text file in the program and it
reads it back to you.

I know of no freeware *speech to text* programs. As for the Microsoft
Speech SDK:

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/techinfo/apioverview/

it's a "set of development tools":

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/techinfo/apioverview/#_doc

and isn't a free standing application as far as I know.
 
KeyMaster from Heavy Horse provides proofreading tools that can be
used to read ebooks outloud from Wordpad or Notepad.

visit http://www.heavy-horse.com for further details.

There are plenty of good quality free SAPI 4 voices that you can
download if you are not happy with the Microsoft ones (e.g. from L&H,
IBM).

Cheers

Matthew James.
 
Shadow said:
Indeed Jaime!

My thanks to everyone for the comments. Much appreciated :-)

John, there has been some confusion about text => speech and vice versa and
it looks like both are being covered. I'm looking for an adventure in both
:-)

I revisited the spacejock.com web site and dnloaded Yread anyway. It seems
to install ok on Win2K but I cannot figure how it works. It's the most
obscure program I have ever seen - and no useful instructions.

It suggests dnloading an ebook version of a funny novel : 3 men in a boat,
which I did, but how to point the prog to it???

Will have another try soon.

Thanks again.

S.
Click to expand...

I figured it out. I had dnloaded only the installer and it fishes the
various programs off the web site and then finally have a little prog that
you load the files to be read into. The default voice is very artificial but
there are more available from the M$ web site.

Have fun!

S.
 
The Microsoft Speech SDK handles both text-to-speech and
I tried the MS one a few years ago and found it hugely bloated. If I don't
find anything better, I'll revisit.
Click to expand...

You can jettison most of that SDK crap and still have the text/speech
engines operable. It would be nice if they packaged the engines
separately.
 
For crying out loud!!! I want to get my ideas into the computor faster thatn typing and without getting hand cramps...!!! Ten years ago i had an old computer that had a voice recognition program that cast me $5 adn it worked fine. problem is that i can't find it and the new computers don't have floppy drives anymore and won't accept the simple programs.. i think cause they are dos or something.... please, please, can someone send me to a site, yes, please copy and paist a site wheree I can get free (not a trial) software so i can SPEAK into a mike a and have it appear as written on my computer. I know it requires some training to recognize etc. but please can we stop with all the word to speech stuff!! I have documents that I need to get out for other people to stop forclosures and hold Judges to their oaths and I don't have a bank roll... it has to be out there, or someone who has it and never uses it and will donate it to a very worthy cause. Thank you. P.S. If you have not seen it, you need to ... go to informationliberation.com and watch moneymasters!!! then the 911 videos. You don't have to read and you don't need text to voice :-} just listen and be stunned.... More if your interested in freedom and how to turn it around... which is why I need the VOICE to TEXT. So I can say it as it comes with out having to use both hands and eyes etc. thanks..
 
Just in case you didn't get that, it is VOICE TO TEXT, that's VOICE....... INTO TEXT. Where one speeks and the computer transfers it into TEXT. An actual site I can copy and paste or just click on, download and use. I need to get on with these documents to stop people from having their houses taken away for no reason. Yes, people who own their houses free and clear and yet still are being taken away.... I'm helping can't you help me help them. Who knows maybe you will need some of this vital information some day. We are forging a way for the rest later on, creating presedence and we need to be sharp and precise not bogged down on typing stuff all day when we can just have a conversation and as the concpts and stratagies come to voice are put into document. If your a creator at all youunderstand how important this is as insparation comes and goes so very quickly... before we get a chance to type it out...
 
Back
Top