Hello Chris On 14 May 2012, at 22:33, chris hallsworth <[email protected]> wrote:
• Just to let you know I am evaluating some voices as part of Infovox 3. They are Lucy and Rachel, two British female voices. Like Ivona they are human sounding and very clear, as well as quite responsive. But what I have noticed is that the voices are somewhat louder than Ivona. What I also like is the fact I can evaluate them as much as I like. You can download a free, 60 minute per Windows session, export as MP3 feature in Speech Creator disabled version, from http://www.acapela-group.com/infovox3-37-3-speech-solutions-tts.html Gordon uses the Rachel voice on his Mac and PC all the time. The responsiveness on both platforms is good; although Window-Eyes itself is very very sluggish in comparison to NVDA. In fact, it's so darn slow that I can actually see the characters drawing themselves on the screen sometimes whilst the voices are stuttering and stammering. That doesn't happen with NVDA which is very very fast by comparison all round. So Gordon is leaning towards switching to using NVDA all the time. He has an "InKey" version which comes on a USB thumb drive and gives you a three-license pack. So he can use the voices installed locally on 3 machines at once, or just plug the thumb drive in without any installation and it just works like a portable version of NVDA works. It comes bundled with NVDA and Thunder, another free screen-reader for Windows. GW Micro really is not doing itself any favours with the recent releases of Window-Eyes. That was Gordon's first comment when he finally got to sit down and play with the new Samsung notebook he has. Neither of us can tolerate that abysmal Dectalk32 synthesiser, Eloquance is just as bad and the Nuance voices aren't much better. One thing that really bugs Gordon is the inability, so it seems, to change the voice that Window-Eyes uses at the log-in screen. Why they elected to make that hard wired is something of a mystery. But they did, and they wouldn't answer questions when I contacted them about that. They just told me it can't be changed, so live with it. Whatever comes next though, unless it's a huge major astronomical improvement in terms of quality, we will never be purchasing any further upgrades, (and I use that word very reluctantly in this particular scenario, from GW Micro or their dealership network. Window-Eyes is now a bloated utility just like Windows itself. They've been papering over the cracks for years it seems, and now some of the plaster is definitely coming off the wall. We both think it needs a total rewrite from the ground up. They're still using libraries which were in use in Windows 3.0 so we are told. That tells you something, I think. Lynne ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
