Re: [orca-list] New Linux user, needing higher quality speech...

[Josh K <joshknnd1982 gmail com>]

why can't we use decTalk for linux? if i remember right we could 8 to 10 
yearrs back. DecTalk is pretty good I think.

follow me on twitter @joshknnd1982

On 5/15/2015 8:37 PM, Kyle wrote:
> According to B.Henry:
> # Kyle, I understand your point of view, but this kind of post is really
> # once again preaching in my opinion. Those who can and wish to go FOS or
> # bust are already doing so, and those who can't or won't switch away from
> # Voxin will not be convinced.
>
> I'm not preaching, I am only attempting to point out the technical
> problems with using something so old and outdated that has to maintain
> more and more very old compatible C libraries on its own in order to
> work at all, and is unable to be rebuilt against the newest libraries
> that all distros are using now. There's also the fact that a simple typo
> or OCR mistake can crash the entire screen reader, and that's no
> exageration. There is also a literary term, which is also the name of a
> Bitcoin client written in Python that will also crash the screen reader
> when speaking it is attempted. I will not write those words here, as
> common though they are, I will certainly be accused of being malicious
> if I write these perfectly normal misspellings here. Believe me, just
> stick an h where the n should be in Wednesday and you will feel the
> burn. Now go Google C a e s u r e or w e b h e s d a y. One is a
> literary term that is also a Bitcoin application, and the other is a
> common OCR mistake found especially in old newspaper headlines. The
> first one I mentioned is a one-letter typo, where the letter typed is
> very close to the correct letter, so is extremely easy to mistype. Now
> tell me again that I'm preaching. I can't recommend something that is
> broken, and will refuse to help someone get it going, knowing that they
> will have trouble with it. Sorry Christopher, I know you'll wax
> defensive over these statements, though they are indeed true. Do you
> work with/for the person who continues to package this mess? If so, then
> I'm sorry for you indeed, but there's still no need to be defensive of
> something so defective.
>
> <snip>
>
> # Also voxin works on several distros, and very popular ones out of the
> # box, e.g. Arch, Manjaro, Debian...
>
> Sure it works, for now, because the packager has put in more and more
> old system libraries in an attempt to keep it working. There is no
> rebuilding of the code, which is either lost or obfuscated beyond
> usability even by the packagers and license resellers. The old system
> libraries that have to be used to make it work can actually pose
> security problems as well.
>
> <snip>
>
> # If it is important to someone to try and get people using something
> # other than eloquence, aka Voxin, aka viavoice... then I think making
> # good new voices for existing synths such as espeak will be helpful. I've
> # made a few, but I am not sure whether or not  they will help many people
> # who have a hard time hearing existing espeak voices.
>
> There are already many attempts at various voices for Espeak, because
> making them is easy. It's now only a matter of packaging them to work
> with speech-dispatcher until such time as it supports proper voice
> variants, which is hopefully on the horizon to be implemented sooner
> rather than later.
>
> # The bottom line is that quality is a subjective term, and although
> # certain aspects of quality can be objectively measured at the end of the
> # day we are talking about personal prefference. Saying that eloquence is
> # not high quality is at best a personal opinion. Again this comes from
> # someone who uses ESpeak.
>
> See above for the reasons why this synthesizer is of extremely poor
> quality, and this is not just a personal opinion, it's a technical fact.
> I point you once again to Googling certain words that are known among
> the community of users as "crash words." Very few other voices have such
> "crash words," and if they did, they would have either been fixed or
> taken off the market years ago instead of being held together by the
> increasing layers of compatibility glue just to keep them working just a
> little bit longer. Imagine if you purchased a TV with problems like
> this. Say for example you turned on your TV and found that whenever a
> certain shape appeared on screen, the whole thing would crash, forcing
> you to turn it off and then back on. More common would be a malformed
> packet caused by degradation of the digital signal, but you get the
> idea. If such a packet forced you to powercycle your TV, you would say
> that it's broken or low-quality, and you would rightfully want your
> money back. This is the case with Voxin, ViaVoice, Eloquence, IBMTTS,
> TTSynth, and on and on and on, but it's just not getting fixed.
> Therefore, the quality is very much measurable, and is very very bad,
> and if I purchase any one of these, even knowing how broken it is, in
> many places, I should have the right to a refund, or even a lawsuit
> against the vendor for selling, and continuing to sell,  known defective
> software.
>
> # I've seen mailing lists degenerate in to spaces doninated by "my voice
> # is better than yours" conversations for days on end where the clutter of
> # voice prefference posts makes it annoying to look for the other content
> # being posted.
>
> This is not one of those e-mails. It is a technical summary of why
> people should try to find, or maybe even make, something that works
> better, even if it sounds relatively similar.
>
> # I've sure seen more email from people who can't get festival to work
> # than those who have had trouble installing Voxin, and Voxin certainly is
> # easy to install on the distro the original poster is usiing.
>
> Sure there's no trouble installing it, because someone is putting a lot
> of effort into making it installable. Apparently, no one is putting so
> much effort into making Festival so easy to install and use, which is
> sad indeed. Voxin et al certainly aren't usable in the long term, and I
> stand by this technical acessment.
> Sent from my sun spot