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

From: kendell clark <coffeekingms gmail com>
To: Luke Yelavich <themuso ubuntu com>, orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] New Linux user, needing higher quality speech
Date: Sun, 17 May 2015 18:16:28 -0500

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hi
Myself, I think this could be partially solved by implementing proper
varient support for speech-dispatcher's espeak module. The nvda espeak
driver does this, but it does it, I believe, by having it's own
special copy of espeak, and this would be all kinds of inconvenient to
deal with, so if this is done, It should probably either be done by
interfacing with libespeak, or somehow communicating with the espeak
code itself via system calls. I'm no programmer, so no idea how this
could be done. A common complaint I often hear is that nvda supports
varients, and it's easily changed, why doesn't orca? My response is
that it's not an orca issue, but a speech-dispatcher one. Until it
supports proper varients a script would need to be developed to
concatinate the varients and the voices, making a voice
speech-dispatcher can parse them. This has been done for sonar images,
and it was done for older vinux releases. A major problem with this is
once espeak is updated, as I do very frequently, the script has to be
re run, and I can see all kinds of complaints from new users,
generally revolving around "why doesn't this work?" Please note I'm
not complaining, just trying to find at least some form of a solution.
I have no idea what to do about natural voices in linux. This is a
chicken and egg problem. Companies won't develop more natural voices
for linux without a good reason, and users won't switch to linux, at
least some windows users won't, until there are more natural voices.
Speech-dispatcher is also an added complexity in itself. A driver has
to be written for each speech synth. Windows and, possibly mac, have
their own standard speech APIs that synthesizers use, and any screen
reader that supports this api can use those voices. I *think* this is
what speech-dispatcher is supposed to be. The difference is that sapi
on windows doesn't have drivers for each individual synth. I have no
idea about mac, I've never used one.

Thanks
Kendell clark


Luke Yelavich wrote:

On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 11:41:49AM AEST, Glenn / Lenny wrote:

I am thankful for eSpeak, and I do much prefer Eloquence,
however, I install NVDA on a lot of people's computers in my
work, that is, people who have used a computer with sight, and
when they are having trouble using their computers due to vision
loss. Their reaction to eSpeak is not favorable, and when I
switch it to Eloquence, they find it more palatable.


Its worth noting that NVDA out of the box uses an espeak variant,
and I myself don't find that particular variant palletable at all.
I disable all espeak variants on all systems where I use espeak, as
the default voice is more acceptable to my ears.

I wonder whether people would think differently of espeak if no
variant was used by default with NVDA.

Luke _______________________________________________ orca-list
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Follow-Ups:
- Re: [orca-list] New Linux user, needing higher quality speech
  - From: Luke Yelavich

References:
- Re: [orca-list] New Linux user, needing higher quality speech
  - From: Glenn / Lenny
- Re: [orca-list] New Linux user, needing higher quality speech
  - From: Luke Yelavich

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