This is very good information to know. I was familiar with other voices for windows programs, but since moving to the mac, I was not too familiar with extra voices that could be gotten for the mac. As a side comment/question, do any of you know how companies like AccessWare, or others make their voices? Are there any good articles out there that describe how Apple, Accessware etc create their text to speach programs? I've always been curious as to the process for creating a new voice, especially when also adding a foreign language or dialect. Thanks Laurel On Apr 17, 2013, at 6:52 PM, Esther wrote:
> Hi Laurel, Sarah, and Others, > > I'm not aware of the current status of third-party voices for the Mac, other > than the Acapela Group's voices sold by Assistiveware (which are the > Infovox/iVox voices that Laurel referenced). Ones that have been used by > other VoiceOver users include those by Cepstral and Cereproc. However, it > used to be that the Cepstral voices were just not as stable when used as a > system voice for VoiceOver, as opposed to using it for simple text-to-speech > conversions of documents or mail. I think that Cepstral has voices for US & > UK English, Canadian French, Spanish as spoken in the Americas, German, and > Italian. I did try one of the Cereproc Scottish voices, but I stopped using > it after it crashed VoiceOver a few times. They may have improved things > since then, since Cereproc synthesized a voice for Roger Ebert, the movie > critic who just recently passed away, to use as a replacement voice on his > Mac with VoiceOver when he had surgery of the larynx for cancer. > > Assistiveware put in additional work to keep the Infovox/iVox voices they > sell stable with VoiceOver. They don't offer the full complement of Acapela > voices sold for Windows, although most of the voices are available. I use > VoiceDream Reader on my iPhone to read documents, PDF files, etc. in other > languages, and for their TTS reading you can get all the Infovox/iVox voices > that are available for the Mac, plus ones for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. > I also know that there's a Japanese voice product called DTalker, that has > been around for a while, and that is available for Snow Leopard and Lion. I > think they worked with Assistiveware back when there was a separate offering > of VisioVoice that was offered for French, Japanese, and Dutch, before other > languages were supported with VoiceOver. > > As far as I know, there are no Hebrew voices yet available for use with > VoiceOver on the Mac. For some languages individuals have compiled the > eSpeak voices to use for TTS. I think that was true for Greek, before there > was an Infovox/iVox option. > > I believe the Google Translate app on the iPhone now supports a Hebrew voice, > but I don't know of any apps that let you read text in Hebrew on iOS or Mac > OS X. > > HTH. Cheers, > > Esther > > > On 16 Apr 2013, at 18:22, Sarah k Alawami wrote: > >> I think the a cappella voices work just as good. If those are the same as >> the info vox voices excuse ignorance. lol! >> On Apr 16, 2013, at 9:08 PM, Laurel Wheeler <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> I know that you can go into VO preferences and download extra voices for >>> the mac in various languages. I've done this and love it. I also know that >>> there are other places where you can buy, or get for free, voices that will >>> work on the mac with voiceover that are not from Apple. I know for example >>> that InfoBox, iBox has voices that can be gotten for the mac. I was >>> wondering if any of you know of other places where we can get voices that >>> will work with voiceover that are good. I see places on the web where I can >>> download open shareware, but I don't think it looks too safe, so I'm >>> wanting to get extra voices from places that we know are good. I would be >>> particularly interested in Hebrew voices, if anybody knows of any, but even >>> just in general. Where all can we get good voices from? >>> Thanks >>> Laurel > > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> > > To reply to this post, please address your message to > [email protected] > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at > either the list's own dedicated web archive: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> > or at the public Mail Archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. > Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that > the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and > worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security > strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something > unpredictable happen. > > Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by > visiting the list website at: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
