Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertDDL
Problem is, most of those companies sell their vioces at a resonable price, but only for your own private use. Take Cereproc, for instance:
https://www.cereproc.com/storesapi
a voice costs £25.99.
But:
"Please note these voices are for personal use only, e.g. a home user on their own PC. For commercial use of CereProc voices, or if you wish to distribute audio to third parties, please see our Commercial Use/Audio Broadcast Voices page."
And there you pay £299.99 for one voice, and:
"This version of the voice is licensed for commercial users and/or audio redistribution. Users are permitted to generate and distribute an unlimited quantity of audio to an unlimited number of end users. Please note that the price is an annual charge."
Annual charge!
Also, the result will depend on your writing style. Short and simple sentences, and it may be astonishingly good. Complex syntax and nuances of meaning that demand attention to prosody, not so good. Poetry, and you're lost.
Also, blind users will use their own TTS systems or software, which offer some advantages over playing audio files (for instance, you can navigate more easily, you can select voice, pitch and speed, you can have words spelled out, the files are much smaller, etc.). A human-read audio file will usually offer a far more rewarding experience (still have to listen to yours), but I don't see much point in a pre-recorded speech synth output. |
My uncle used a reading machine that the library for the blind loaned him.
Of course, this was before computers were common household items.