Messages

1

Speech Technology / SUPPORT for Neospeech

« on: December 21, 2006, 05:20:31 pm »

Kim,
The voices aren't as good as the sample I heard of the Kate voice for HAL -- but, if you want a program that works, I think you'll find that ReadPlease will do it, www.readplease.com. Their title is "ReadPlease Plus 2003" so you can see they haven't changed anything in three years. Try their free download first. But, i've been able to use it on a couple of my puters and my wife has used it as a teacher of special ed, so it has a good record in my experience. It has a very straightforward interface where you can choose voices, set speed, correct pronunciation. The only thing it lacks is the slick, new, lifelike voices. I'm about to delete everything else from my machine and stick with ReadPlease until this business grows up a bit.

As for Bill -- I take it this is your baby; you should know that telling us about people who have no problems is not support. Telling us to figure it out ourselves is not support. And, hiding out for weeks while we ask for help before making an appearance in a forum is not support. I think Kim is more pissed than I am; if I sound incensed, it's because a simple, dispassionate statement of the facts in this case really does condemn your retail policies.

So, you see us as "wanting to put the fault on Zabaware when in fact the fault is with our systems." That's a pretty muddled view of things. Zabaware does not work on my system. Clearly it's the combination that is at fault. If I buy software from Adobe that doesn't run on my system, they understand that we need to work out the problem between the two. Sometimes it's a new driver or patch from Adobe, sometimes it's a tweak to my system, but they don't just wish me luck and predict that I'll be really happy if I ever get it running!

Like Kim, I have deteriorating vision right at the center of my visual field. I still get along fine in a general way, though fine discriminations are difficult. I can still read my screen easily if I enlarge the font. But, I want to gradually accustom myself to using technology to shift into an audio mode wherever possible. I tell you this to give you a sense of where I and many other (potential) customers are coming from: we are not geeks interested in AI; we are regular folks who want tech help. We want the technology to help us with our regular challenges; we don't want the technology to *be* the challenge. We're not stupid, and we're not hostile; we just have other things to do and we're disappointed that the helpful software your website appeared to offer didn't pan out.

I honestly believe that at least the two of us should get our money back, because the software simply doesn't fulfill the implied contract. But, I'm not going to lose sleep over the matter. It would be nice though if, when I visit the website again in a year, there is a "Contact" page in the menu and, on that page, some warranty info.

2

Speech Technology / SUPPORT for Neospeech

« on: December 21, 2006, 09:47:47 am »

I have the same complaint as Kim1216 -- purchased a package from zabaware that doesn't work, and I've been unable to get any response, much less support. (Sorry, but well-intended, generous suggestions from forum members doesn't amount to support.)

I can't get the Kate voice to work. This wasn't advertised as a package for experts in TTS tech. The topic interests me, but I'm busy with other things now. I bought the package in order to reduce the difficulty I have reading things on account of my retinal damage -- not to enter a curriculum of research. I paid for this package because I found the Kate voice to be far and away better than what I had heard in any other package (of which I have several from a few years back). So, when it is exactly *that* voice that doesn't work, it's a problem.

The suggestion to go to C:Program FilesHaptekplayerdataHapTTS looked very helpful. I did that. Guess what! When I click on any of the voices, it speaks the sample text. But, when I click on VWKate, I get exactly the same error box and no voice.

The error box says LOADTTS_ENGERROR!! -- yeah, with two exclamation marks. The exact same thing that I get trying to set that voice from within the program.

I really doubt this turkey will ever fly. It's a real bummer to me, because I would dearly love to go on about my business. But, I agree with Kim1216 that the behavior of Zabaware (what- or whoever that is) is irresponsible.

Anybody know where I can get a text to speech program that works well, has a highly understandable voice, and with the option to enter custom pronunciations?

3

Speech Technology / Reader will not work with Kate, no Paul

« on: December 05, 2006, 05:42:45 pm »

I overlooked some problems with the demo versions and bought the Hal Reader, which I just installed from CD. I clearly lack a lot of information that it seems should be available in documentation, so here goes.

What's Neo Speech? Is VW Kate part of it? I hear mention of Kate and Paul; my TTS lists "VW Kate" but not Paul. Other listed voices are 6 varieties of "Robosoft" and "Sam."

When I select Kate, I get an error dialog box with "VOICETEXTENGSAPI50" in the title bar and "LOADTTS_ENG ERROR!!" as the error. I click OK and try it -- no sound comes out of the thing.

The other voices (the robos and Sam) work, but are so rough that I would never use this program with them. I have a much better voice in my old ReadPlease.

I re-installed and let the program repair, to no avail. Should bhere be more voices in the drop-down list of Hal Reader? (I think there were more voices in the demo.)

I'm on an HP box with XP Media.

My need is for something that will read anything I copy to the clipboard -- email, web page text, word docs.

Should I be choosing from some menu of "engines"? What are they? Where are they? Would it be possible to assemble a list of exactly what I need to make this work? I'm more than willing to go to some trouble, but I am not able to research all of this field in order to determine what will work.

Thanks for any help.

4

Speech Technology / correcting pronunciation

« on: December 05, 2006, 05:20:24 pm »

I guess I'm just not ready to use this stuff.

I have no idea what speech engine I'm using, nor really much idea of what it all means. I really wanted to install a program that reads stuff to me, and don't have time right now to study up on these things. So much to know, so little time.

It turns out that when I used the best voice (I think it was VW Kate), the "pronunciation" button did nothing. With another voice (forget which) the button got me a Microsoft dialog to edit pronunciation. Unfortunately, that voice isn't good enough for me to bother training it. So, there's something aout the VW Kate situation that's the problem.

Because the voice/reading was so excellent, I sent in my dough and got the Hal Reader package with Neospeech. Yesterday the CD came in the mail. I uninstalled the demo version of TTS as well as HAL Assistant; and installed what was on the CD. Upon the first launch of Hal Reader I got the error "LOADTTS_ENG ERROR!!" in a little dialog box with the title "VOICETEXTENGSAPI50" So, now I can get the really foolish sounding robot voices to read, but my beloved VW Kate just produces that error msg. Ironic that the demos worked much better than this.

I guess I better post this new bafflement in some more appropriate location. I did send an email to zabaware, but no answer in two days.

5

Speech Technology / correcting pronunciation

« on: November 23, 2006, 02:39:28 pm »

Again, thanks, Hal does fine with C.I.A. But, what I'm asking is if I can get Hal to pronounce CIA as C.I.A. In the only other program I know that's any use to me, it's possible to make the computer say it *my* way.

Once more I ask, however: What is supposed to happen when you push the "Pronunciation" button?

The place I meen is in "Ultra Hal Assistant Options, "Speech" category. I get w window that has, in the top half, "Test Voice", "Pronunciation", and "Advanced/About" -- the only one of these buttons that works is "Test Voice."

My hunch is that, if there is an answer to my need for pronunciation modifications, it's behind the "pronunciation" button.

Can someone try their version and tell me a) if the button works, and b) what options you get when it works.

I'm just fascinated by the differences in how people use this program.

6

Speech Technology / correcting pronunciation

« on: November 23, 2006, 09:01:14 am »

Thanks, but what I'm looking for is a way to change or define individual words. E.g., the abbreviation CIA should be said as three letters. In ReadPlease, there is a dialog in which I can define it like this:
CIA = see eye a
You can tinker with how you define things to make it say them just the way you want. It becomes a dictionary of special pronunciations. I'm looking for something that provides the same function for Hal.

I can't get into whatever is behind the "Pronunciation" button. Is there something there for individual words? If not, what *is* there?

7

Speech Technology / correcting pronunciation

« on: November 22, 2006, 10:23:16 am »

Hi, I'm just checking out the evaluation version of Ultra Hal. My main need is for text to speech for all the things I need to read from screen like email, web pages, etc.

There are some things that are not pronounced correctly and I'm looking for the way to provide corrections. The only likely place is a  button labeled "Pronunciation" but it doesn't work -- is that the place to look? does it not work in the eval version?

Basic question is whether I can supply HAL with custom pronunciations.

Andrejs