Accessories Text to speech

[jonathan2022]

i have an older kindle generation 4. and may want to upgrade sometime. which models support text to speech. audiobooks arent an option because of the download size.

[hleo12]

Originally Posted by jonathan2022

i have an older kindle generation 4. and may want to upgrade sometime. which models support text to speech. audiobooks arent an option because of the download size.

Amazon removed their text-to-speech function on their e-ink devices. The reasons seems to be authors pushing back because of audiobooks sales.

There is kinda a workaround tho. Recent Kindles have VoiceView under the Accessibility function. It functions like text-to-speech, but for the whole Kindle. It's sort of a bit tricky to navigate. I've tried it just now and it works well enough. Once you have to function turned on, once you open a book it will automatically read it aloud. Surprisingly, it doesn't sound as robotic as I'd expected.

On a sidenote, it would be awesome if we could choose between a male and female voice.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by jonathan2022

i have an older kindle generation 4. and may want to upgrade sometime. which models support text to speech. audiobooks arent an option because of the download size.

If you're open to changing from Kindle, some of the PocketBook models have text to speech (headphones or speaker via BlueTooth). There's seven different voices for American English — most other supported countries have two or three voices, a few only have one.

[Quoth]

I was thinking of investigating using PC to turn epubs into mp3s. I think on Linux there is a way to have the speech synthesis go to a file. There seems to be one OS wide text to Speech installed by default and options for maybe 3 others on Mint via Debian.

Anyone done this?

I tried voiceview on the Kindle PW3 using a generic USB audio and micro USB to USB-A host adaptor and downloading the extra packages from Amazon. It's a horrible design of interface. If you just want text to speech the DXG or Kindle Keyboard 3 are easier to use, but quality is like a 1989 PC. The Voiceview doesn't seem much better quality. My son has a PW4 and the only difference is the built-in BT wireless instead of the USB adaptor.

Frankly I prefer a 3.5mm jack. Better choice of earphones (comfort and quality), no pesky pairing and no needing to recharge. I did get a standalone rechargeable BT rx that can drive 3.5mm jack phones or AUX in on car radio etc. Pain to pair. Also some BT earphones & Keyboards can only pair with ONE device at a time! You have to unpair first!

Has anyone done file conversion to put epub as mp3 files for phone player?

[Quoth]

Is there an Android TTS that could install on the Boyue Likebook Mars? KOReader works and I've a variety of Android apps on it. Both 3.5mm jack and BT work with stock and 3rd party Android mp3 players. I think P78 is Mars replacement.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I was thinking of investigating using PC to turn epubs into mp3s. I think on Linux there is a way to have the speech synthesis go to a file. There seems to be one OS wide text to Speech installed by default and options for maybe 3 others on Mint via Debian.

There are a thousand options, well, three or four at least (espeak-ng, epeak, festival, flite, pico), plus speech-dispatcher to tie them all together. speech-dispatcher has no way to record to file, so you'd need to get it to emit to the speakers and use PulseAudio monitoring to record what's being played on those (about three lines of code, e.g. https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...rogram-to-file). However most of the underlying speech synthesisers can emit to a file easily: e.g. for Festival it's a matter of "festival_client --ttw --output foo.wav", and for espeak and espeak-ng you just need to pass "-w foo.wav".

[JSWolf]

I thought the new Kindles have TTS done through Bluetooth.

[jonathan2022]

Originally Posted by hleo12

Amazon removed their text-to-speech function on their e-ink devices. The reasons seems to be authors pushing back because of audiobooks sales.

There is kinda a workaround tho. Recent Kindles have VoiceView under the Accessibility function. It functions like text-to-speech, but for the whole Kindle. It's sort of a bit tricky to navigate. I've tried it just now and it works well enough. Once you have to function turned on, once you open a book it will automatically read it aloud. Surprisingly, it doesn't sound as robotic as I'd expected.

On a sidenote, it would be awesome if we could choose between a male and female voice.

Thanks for replying .nearly wasted money thinking it was still available. I just wanted to verify from other kindle users

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I thought the new Kindles have TTS done through Bluetooth.

They do. I've tried it, and it works, but is clumsy IMO. And with no on board speakers, earbuds or external Bluetooth speakers of some sort are necessary.

When I want to use TTS, I read the book on one of my iDevices, and use Speak Screen. I don't want to mess with earbuds every time, as I've yet to find ones that will stay in my ears.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

They do. I've tried it, and it works, but is clumsy IMO. And with no on board speakers, earbuds or external Bluetooth speakers of some sort are necessary.

When I want to use TTS, I read the book on one of my iDevices, and use Speak Screen. I don't want to mess with earbuds every time, as I've yet to find ones that will stay in my ears.

BT headphones will work. The Koss PortaPro BT are quite good.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079ZB9JLL
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079ZB9JLL

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I was thinking of investigating using PC to turn epubs into mp3s. I think on Linux there is a way to have the speech synthesis go to a file. There seems to be one OS wide text to Speech installed by default and options for maybe 3 others on Mint via Debian.

Anyone done this?

Not a Linux solution - but if you run calibre on Windows you can use my old TTS to MP3 calibre plugin to convert any de-DRM'd epub/azw3/kepub in your calibre library to a nicely named & tagged folder of MP3s (one-per-chapter).

On my nothing-special-PC the conversion runs at 20,000+ w.p.m. so an average novel should take <5 minutes.

Caveat: I'm no longer supporting or developing this plugin but it's not obsolete. It works fine on calibre 5.xx and should continue to work on the upcoming calibre 6.xx.

[hleo12]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Not a Linux solution - but if you run calibre on Windows you can use my old TTS to MP3 calibre plugin to convert any de-DRM'd epub/azw3/kepub in your calibre library to a nicely named & tagged folder of MP3s (one-per-chapter).

On my nothing-special-PC the conversion runs at 20,000+ w.p.m. so an average novel should take <5 minutes.

Caveat: I'm no longer supporting or developing this plugin but it's not obsolete. It works fine on calibre 5.xx and should continue to work on the upcoming calibre 6.xx.

oooh this is nice. I just installed it and I'm trying it out. There are just some books that I wanna read but for some reason my brain refuses to do so.

edit: is there any way to change the voice?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by hleo12

oooh this is nice. I just installed it and I'm trying it out. There are just some books that I wanna read but for some reason my brain refuses to do so.

edit: is there any way to change the voice?

Easy answer: The Voices currently available on your PC appear in the plugin's GUI in a drop-down menu (middle bottom, labelled 'Voice').

Harder answer: It may not be an easy read but try post #2 from the previous link. Windows 10 has quite a lot of English-dialect Voices available. Some MS language packs need to be installed via Settings before you can use them.

[hleo12]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Easy answer: The Voices currently available on your PC appear in the plugin's GUI in a drop-down menu (middle bottom, labelled 'Voice').

Harder answer: It may not be an easy read but try post #2 from the previous link. Windows 10 has quite a lot of English-dialect Voices available. Some MS language packs need to be installed via Settings before you can use them.

Thanks! My pc only has 2 available voices it seems. But it's enough for now.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Not a Linux solution - but if you run calibre on Windows you can use my old TTS to MP3 calibre plugin to convert any de-DRM'd epub/azw3/kepub in your calibre library
…
It works fine on calibre 5.xx and should continue to work on the upcoming calibre 6.xx.

Thanks
Unfortunately not viable.
I've two windows boxes for old games and my old laptop transferred
as VBox VM. But that's XP, Win7, & XP. So Calibre 3.48

EDIT

Attached at the end of this post is a zip file for the old version of TTS to MP3 which works on calibre v3.41-v5.3 inclusive.

Ah, so that will work!

Or maybe not on the XP (32 bit). Not sure if the win7 game box is 32 or 64 bit.

Or maybe it will

update v0.1.3

Small change to enable plugin to be listed in calibre's Index of Plugins.
Should now work, in a limited fashion, for Windows/calibre 32bit users, including Calibre Portable.

Which download for Calibre 3.48 on XP?