free text to speach software

A

An Infernal Spawn of Evil

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I'm looking for some software that will;
a) convert text to speech without sounding too robotic or "Stephen Hawkingish"
b) Allow very large files - like full books
c) give the option of saving the output file as a mp3 or wav or something.
d) be prefereably freeware/shareware, or as cheap as possible.

the best I have found is "Natural Reader", but to unlock the save output file option you need to upgrade to the paid version which isn't cheap.

Options anybody?
 
you not going to find one that isnt robotic- but that said, you get used to it really quickly

I use a combination of Espeak and lame- which are both command line programs. the first converts text to speech and lame then encodes it to mp3.

My dad is visually impaired so we convert all his ebooks to mp3 using the above software, including the count of monte cristo which has about 460 000 words, so I know it works well

as I said, it is a command line tool, but im sure there will be an opensource front end for espeak- there definitely is one for linux, but im not sure about windows- havent looked

alternatively if you run out of options, I have written a front end in delphi that looks for the character combination /*- and splits the file there into a new mp3, which is great for dividing chapters. I doubt you would want the exe but if you know anyone who knows programming I can send you the source and they can check it and compile it for you.
 
ave said:
you not going to find one that isnt robotic- but that said, you get used to it really quickly

I use a combination of Espeak and lame- which are both command line programs. the first converts text to speech and lame then encodes it to mp3.

My dad is visually impaired so we convert all his ebooks to mp3 using the above software, including the count of monte cristo which has about 460 000 words, so I know it works well

as I said, it is a command line tool, but im sure there will be an opensource front end for espeak- there definitely is one for linux, but im not sure about windows- havent looked

alternatively if you run out of options, I have written a front end in delphi that looks for the character combination /*- and splits the file there into a new mp3, which is great for dividing chapters. I doubt you would want the exe but if you know anyone who knows programming I can send you the source and they can check it and compile it for you.
Click to expand...

You might do better looking for audio books with a real narrator(?)
 
Lounger said:
You might do better looking for audio books with a real narrator(?)
Click to expand...

they are too big to download with my little 2 gb cap.... we tried using librivox for the public domain titles, but those were terrible. That said, its surprising how quickly you get used to the mechanical voice, after about half a minute you no longer even think about it.
 
Actually I don't want it for books neccessarily - I want it to convert technical articles to audio and video web content as well as enable me to listen to educational PDFs and stuff while I am driving - that way I can turn morning trafic jams into a more constuctive use of otherwise wasted down time.
 
OK - so I coughed up and bought Natural Reader. The personal version only costs 300 and something rand and even though it only has 2 voices, they both sound reasonably natural. Highly recommended.
 
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