How to add text speech support with Windows Speech Engine removed?
2014-07
ElektroStudios
I'm under Windows 8 x64, it's a custom installation where I've removed the windows text-to-speech engine and male/female TTS voices that were implemented in the DVD to clean-up a big space, but now just I need to let my PC speak some text that I have written in a textfile and using an English female voice, but I'm totally lost 'cause I don't have the text speech engine, I need help.
First of all I've tried to use e-speak application and other free apps from sourceforge site but as I was supposed those applications are based and depends on the windows speech engine TTS.
Then Secondly I've tried to download and install the Speech SDK 5.1 just wondering that maybe this package could recover the necesary files that I need to speak text, but didn't.
Seems that the original Windows Speech Engine are not distributed over the web by Microsoft as a single package like other features that could be downloaded ( ex: .net framework ), or at least I can't find any related package to try to recover/install the windows speech support to speak text.
So... what alternatives I have without re-installing an untouched Windows? really I won't, I just need to speak some text in this specific case and never more I should need this feature installed in my Windows...
Maybe some applications such as Dragon Naturally Speaking comes with their own engine and TTS and that could solve my problem?
Jim McKeeth
I am running Windows 7 and I know it has the ability to read me text in my applications, but I am looking for a good utility to save chunks of text as a wav file or mp3. It may already be built into the OS, but cleverly disguised. I know I can write a program to call the API, which is my next step if there isn't a good solution already.
I really like the quality of the AT&T system, but it has some pretty steep restrictions on using the produced MP3. I'd like to use them in my podcast.
Web based is OK too, as long as it easily produces a fairly unencumbered (Public domain or Creative Commons) Wav, MP3 or some other standard audio file. Naturally I prefer free or open source over commercial, but that isn't a requirement.
User
I've tried espeak, festival, and MaryTTS. They all generate understandable voices for the most part but they are not very natural. Even with additional voice downloads for these systems (e.g. Mbrola, CMU Arctic) the voices are not that great.
IVONA voices are the best I've heard so far. They give you a 30 day free demo which is enough if you have a one-off task to do. After that they are like $45/voice. Amazon just bought the company so you know it's solid (http://www.ivona.com/us/news/amazoncom-announces-acquisition-of-ivona-software/).
They work with Microsoft's SAPI interface which means the voices are available to any program that supports that (e.g. Adobe Reader). I've been using them with Text To Wav program which is nice for bulk conversion of text files into wave files.
Edit
Actually just re-read your question and I think for non-personal use (e.g. podcasts) the price is probably a lot higher for IVONA. In that case I'd say check out MaryTTS.
John T
eSpeak is free & open source and offers everything you need.
It can run as a command line program to speak text from a file or from stdin. A shared library version is also available. * Includes different Voices, whose characteristics can be altered. * Can produce speech output as a WAV file. * SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) is supported (not complete), and also HTML. * Compact size. The program and its data, including many languages, totals about 1 Mbytes. * Can translate text to phoneme codes, so it could be adapted as a front end for another speech synthesis engine. * Potential for other languages. Several are included in varying stages of progress. Help from native speakers for these or other languages is welcomed. * Development tools available for producing and tuning phoneme data. * Written in C++.