[gui-talk] Fwd: Victor Stream Speech Correction

[Steve Pattison]

>From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org On
>Behalf Of David B Andrews
>
>I want to correct some slightly wrong information I put up on
>Friday, when writing about the Humanware Victor Reader Stream.  I
>said that I had been told previously that it would have Eloquence
>text to speech in it.  In fact it has a TTS engine called Vocalizer.
>  It is from Nuance, who I believe also owns Eloquence, so is
>probably just a TTS that runs in an environment with less
>resources.
>
>Now, what a person likes in TTS is very subjective, what sounds
>great to one person may sound like a tin can to the next guy.  I
>learned this in my years as Director of the International Braille
>and Technology Center, where I played different synthesizers to
>literally thousands of persons, and watched their reactions.  So,
>what I like or hate you might hate or like.  Anyway, to me the
>Vocalizer speech isn't bad.  It isn't great either, I prefer
>Eloquence, but I can live with it.  I had to up the tone all the way
>up, to get it from being muddy.  I thought it was better than Double
>Talk, like in the Book Port, but not great.
>
>Anyway, that is what  I know and think on that opic, for what it is
>worth.
>
>Dave
>
>David Andrews
>Chief Technology Officer
>Minnesota State Services for the Blind
>2200 University Ave. W., #240
>St. Paul, MN  55114-1840
>(651) 642-0513  Office
>(612) 730-7931  Cell
>(651) 649-5927  Fax

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
Skype:  steve1963
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com