Hi Esther and Josh,
As Esther was so kind to cc-me on her reply I will give you some info
from the AssistiveWare side of things regarding the iVox pricing and
options.
I think just about everything Esther wrote is correct.
Regarding the fact that voices are sold per language instead of per
voice. This is not an AssistiveWare decision, but the decision of
Acapela Group who makes the voices. Selling per voice only works well
if the voices are only sold online. Many (but certainly not all)
people who need these voices (blind users, users with other
disabilities, teachers) can either not buy online because of
regulations or because they purchase these kind of things through
funding and require paperwork by a dealer in order to be able to
purchase. This kind of distribution model only works well for high
volume products or higher priced items. iVox is not a high volume
product, so it's price has to be sufficiently high to make it
interesting for resellers to sell it and do paper work for their
customers.
Another thing you may want to know is the fact that these voices are
far more expensive on the Window's side. We negotiated long and hard
to have Acapela Group offer them at a lower price level for the Mac.
Whether they offer enough value for money is everyone's own personal
decision. As VoiceOver allows use of up to 6 voices for different
things I think the fact that you get multiple voices is a definite
pro. Yes, you could use one voice per language, but having multiple
has benefits. Also the fact that for many languages you get a good
male and female voice is not a bad thing I would say.
If you want a foreign language then getting iVox for that foreign
language will get you the Heather US English voice for free as Esther
pointed out. So if you need one foreign language and don't want
multiple US English voices, this is your cheapest option. If you
really want multiple languages then buy iVox and get additional
language packs for half the price.
The iVox voices work system wide and can be used with just about any
other Mac application. You can use multiple iVox languages with
GhostReader or VisioVoice. The GhostReader voices are cheaper because
they only work with GhostReader (so we have to pay a much lower
royalty to Acapela Group). Note also that they are compressed (to
about 50% file size) and thus are slightly lower quality with some
sound artefacts here and there that the iVox voices don't have.
I hope this clarifies things a bit.
I seem to have some trouble getting the MacVisionary email right now
so please see me on my personal address if you want to continue this
discussion.
david.
On Aug 10, 2007, at 12:25 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Josh,
I think your estimate of the price of InfoVox/iVox voices for three
different languages is too high. There's a different sale price
for additional language packs once you've already purchased
one InfoVox/iVox or VisioVoice language pack. These prices
are $74.50 for each additional (non-Scandinavian) language
pack (normally $109) and $49.50 if the additional language
pack is English. This would still cost $248 (before October 31;
$367 after October 31). But an alternative, if you're just using
the other languages to read web pages, pdf files, and
documents (and not control your operating system) might be
to get the InfoVox/iVox and GhostReader bundle for $109 (sale
price before October 31) and add two extra language licenses
for GhostReader (single user license cost of $24.95 each until
October 31). That appears to give you one language set of
InfoVox/iVox voices for general VoiceOver use (in English), and
a total of 3 language voices to use in GhostReader for
text-to-speech reading of documents, web pages, and
conversions -- so you can switch to voices in three different
languages when reading documents or web pages.
I admit, I'd like to figure this out myself and decide whether
I just want to get a bilingual or trilingual single user license for
GhostReader ($59.95 and $74.95 respectively, regular price),
or add an InfoVox/iVox language pack for $74.95 (before
October 31) to VisioVoice. I don't really need to boot up my
Mac in French (smile).
I also hadn't realized that when you buy VisioVoice in another
language, you get one English InfoVox/iVox voice free.
I'm going to cc this to David Niemeijer at assistiveware in hopes
that he can explain the restrictions on using InfoVox/iVox
multi-lingual voices with GhostReader, as opposed to general
InfoVox/iVox voices with VoiceOver (or with their VisioVoice
product that works with VoiceOver).
Cheers,
Esther
On Thursday, August 09, 2007, "Josh de Lioncourt" wrote:
Just some musings on their pricing schemes.
If I'm understanding the web site correctly, it seems that the
Infovox voices are purchased on a language-by-language basis. In the
US it seems to be about $149 per language, on sale through October
for $99. Each language comes with three or four voices, from what I
can tell, and the samples are very impressive on a lot of them.
There are, typically, one voice per language that I would use, and a
few different languages that I'd like to have. The disappointing
thing is I can't justify spending $100 on a language of voices of
which I'll only ever use one, especially when there are other
languages I'd like to have as well.
I think a voice-by-voice option would be more advantageous for them
and us. If I could buy just the voices I wanted, they'd have my
money. As it is, to get the three voices I'm interested in, it'd
cost me $297 if I buy before October 31, and $447 after October.
That's insanity and I'll never do it.
Cepstral, if memory serves, does sell their voices on a voice-by-
voice basis. It's a pity that Assistiveware hasn't taken the same
approach.
For reference, the web site for Assistiveware is:
http://www.assistiveware.com
Josh de Lioncourt
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
...my other mail provider is an owl...
