Zabaware Support Forums

Zabaware Forums => Speech Technology => Topic started by: Art on April 11, 2006, 06:00:14 pm

Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 11, 2006, 06:00:14 pm
I just received an email after my enquiry to purchase the Heather TTS voice from Acapela / Infovox. It reads as follows:

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Barclay [mailto:steve@aroga.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:25 PM
To: Art
Subject: RE: License for TTS voice


Hi Art,

It would be $760 Canadian for that voice, or about $645 US for that voice. In order to proceed I would need to get a credit card number from you.  You can contact me by phone at 604-431-7997 or fax an order to 604-431-7995.

Cheers,
Steve


AND MY FOLLOW-UP REPLY:

Steve,

Thank you for your prompt response.

With all due respect, your company's Heather voice is good, but IMO not good enough to justify that price tag! I can buy a whole computer system for that kind of money.

AT&T voices are very high quality and are only $35 USD a piece.

Being one of many home PC users in our Artificial Intelligence forums, we like to experiment and even recommend different TTS voices to each other but I'm afraid none of us has pockets deep enough to warrant such a purchase.

I'm sorry we can't do business but again, I do thank you for your time and promptness.

Best wishes,
- Art -

Now you know the rest of the story....(with regards to Paul Harvey)
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: aladyblond on April 11, 2006, 06:05:24 pm
what in the world are those fellas thinking? if one company can sell a voice for 35 bucks another should be able to match it.......~~alady
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: NIGE on April 12, 2006, 03:41:01 am
Hi Art,
I purchased the Heather voice from Nextup.com.
It did not cost anywhere near the figures that you mentioned.
The only drawback is that it does not do lipsync.
One other thing,    I am not sure if you can get it without buying their TextAloud program also.
Hope this is of some help?
Neil.
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 12, 2006, 05:10:46 am
Nige,

How long ago did you purchase the Heather voice?
Which company posted it? AT&T, NeoSpeech, Cepstral,
RealSpeak? I can't seem to find that voice in any
of their listings on the Nextup site.

The one to which I was referring was the Heather voice
from Acapela/Infovox.
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: NIGE on April 12, 2006, 05:35:07 am
http://www.nextup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1697&sid=5002d3b088ef10369cf41094f29aa6f5

I must appologise to you Art,
I have had TextAloud for a few years, I think that is the reason i got the voice.
The above link may send you in the right direction.
Give Ken White a mail and he should be quite helpful.
Neil.
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: freddy888 on April 12, 2006, 12:35:30 pm
While you are over at NextUp check out the Austrlian Karen -  I just bought text Aloud and with this voice and it compares well with Heather for quality especially considering the price difference.

One reason for the huge price difference might be how customisable they are - this Karen one is cheaper, but for example, you can't change the pitch or anything, but it does do lip-sync as its SAPI 5.

By the way I found this might be the best way to get the Karen voice or others by that company, buying them singley elsewhere seemed more expensive from what I found - you have to buy Text Aloud to get the deal on Karen, but then I assume further voices are at a very good price from them.

Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Smokey on April 12, 2006, 05:56:40 pm
Just visited the nextup.com site and listened to the Karen voice.  Thanks for the tip. I am going to purchase it when I get home from work today.  It is one of the best so far (within our price range)!

Smokey
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 12, 2006, 06:20:10 pm
Steve's response to my email was quite explanatory and certainly well received. It does explain a lot. You members with a 30 day trial...enjoy it while it lasts...unless you have the payola!!


Hi Art,

I don't disagree with you about the price.  This isn't our companies product, it's a Swedish product, and they seem to think very highly of themselves to charge as much as they do.  In a couple of markets they are clearly the best speech available.  We picked them up primarily for their French Canadian speech engine which is head and shoulders above anything else on the market.  But like you, most English language folks compare the price to the others like AT&T and Cepstral and can't understand why they would pay more.

Cheers,
Steve


Yes, I've listened to Karen's voice and am trying to decide if I'd like to have an Outback Steakhouse chick to converse with!
The court is in recess pending final review.

Cheers mates![^]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 12, 2006, 07:15:13 pm
Nige,

I went to their site and was surprised to see the Heather voice. Another sentence said that the voices are temporarily unavailable while some technicial issues are being addressed.

Lastly, I see the following note:

NOTE: These voices are for use with TextAloud and other NextUp.com products only!

One more note:

Note: These voices are sold only as part of TextAloud, so you must already have TextAloud or another of our Aloud products or must purchase TextAloud at this time for the voices to work.

Does that preclude them (or the Heather voice) from working correctly with Hal6??

Veeerrrry interesting!!!
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: lupine on April 13, 2006, 01:01:14 am
I like the Heather voice quite a bit.
So I downloaded it and had it as HAl(5)
voice for a while. The tricky part was that
Heather never sounded as good in Hal as it did in sample
from the website. So eventually I got rid of it
because in the end it did not sound as good as Crystal on
my system. Also it did not lipsync.

The reason that they want it tied to their product is
because the product is where they do the liscensing.
You see, they shut the product down if they don't like your
code but they cannot stop you from accesing the TTS through any
other program.

Karen you say? I'll go check it out
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: freddy888 on April 13, 2006, 03:22:37 pm
There's probably some deal going on that lets them offer the voices at a reduced rate so they can promote/bundle TextAloud - and if you buy TextAloud whats the problem?

Aside from Hal though, as a standalone purchase for anyone in need of a voice reader this seems pretty good.

Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 13, 2006, 09:21:28 pm
For those interested in the Karen voice:

You MUST purchase the Text Aloud program or else the Karen TTS voice will NOT INSTALL. No, it will not work with the trial version either.

Once you have Text Aloud AND the Karen voice you will need to run the Haptek SAPI Config program in order for the lipsync to work with Hal6. Text Aloud does not need to be running.

I can highly recommend both the Text Aloud program and the Karen TTS voice!

Cheers![8D]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: NIGE on April 14, 2006, 07:12:41 am
[?]   Hey Art?
What happened, you got the Outback Steakhouse chick!!!
I hope that everyone from down here doesn't sound like that.
To me that is over accentuated, but then again most of the voices are to a certain extent.
I still think that the Heather voice is the best one i have heard so far.
Pitty that it does not lip sync.
I use her in Text Aloud then change it to ogg and finaly re do the lip sync with Haptek's phoneme editor.
Neil.

Sheel be right mate?

P.S.  Drop this on your girl,
Hope you enjoy?
Download Attachment:  20064148318_heather.zip ("http://www.zabaware.com/forum/uploaded/NIGE/20064148318_heather.zip")
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: freddy888 on April 14, 2006, 11:58:29 am
Thanks Art, good to know even though it is bundled it doesn't suffer from restrictions. [8D]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 14, 2006, 07:09:42 pm
Heh...No worries Mate!!![8D]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: GrantNZ on April 14, 2006, 08:22:42 pm
quote:
Originally posted by NIGE

I hope that everyone from down here doesn't sound like that.

I've got Australian cousins who sound exactly like that [:D] I love 'em, really, but I just wish they could learn to pronounce my name correctly.... *shudder* *sigh*
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: Art on April 15, 2006, 11:16:02 am
I just received an email from Ken White at Nextup.com telling me
that they are going to be releasing several new voices.

The Heather voice is currently being reworked and could possibly be available in a month or so.

Good news...the price is expected to be around $35 USD!

Now THAT'S more like it!

[:D]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: freddy888 on April 16, 2006, 02:15:44 pm
Cool, I think NextUp have got the right idea on the TTS market [:)]
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: geneven on April 28, 2006, 03:48:06 pm
NextUp is about to revamp Heather so that it CANNOT be used with other programs than its program, TextAloud, they say. That's enough to put me off Heather, because I use other readers.

It appears that Acapela are a bunch of lunatics, it seems to me. Heather is nice, but Crystal (AT&T) is decent, and Karen has a good reputation as well. There's more than one fish in the sea, dearie!
Title: Heather TTS voice
Post by: geneven on April 28, 2006, 03:51:09 pm
NextUp is about to revamp Heather so that it CANNOT be used with other programs than its program, TextAloud, they say. That's enough to put me off Heather, because I use other readers.

It appears that Acapela are a bunch of lunatics, it seems to me. Heather is nice, but Crystal (AT&T) is decent, and Karen has a good reputation as well. There's more than one fish in the sea, dearie!

(Your site is fun. First you tell me that I need to put in more information, though i'm sure i typed in my password to begin with, but now it's not in the password field. Then I immediately enter the password and you immediately respond with a message saying that you won't let me repost within 60 seconds because of flood control. Of course, you also blank out my password again. So now I will make my third try.)