03-24-2016, 09:42 PM | #61 |
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@Purple Lady. It is, like many things, a matter of personal taste. My choice is Ivona Nicole (Australian accent). When I first used it I had not tried tts for some years, and was vary pleasantly surprised. It had gone, in my opinion, from only marginally useable for listening to a book, to being both useable and comfortable. I can't say that I've shopped around widely for different voices, but of the ones I have heard this is my preference.
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03-25-2016, 11:22 AM | #62 |
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Several of us in this thread like UK Amy. As for books, those whose writers add accents to their characters or made up words like with fantasy books can be difficult to understand and for TTS to read.
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03-25-2016, 11:48 AM | #63 | |||
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Quote:
Quote:
https://www.ivona.com/ and listen to the different voices they all sound very robotic to me. Maybe it's just the text that is read? There are pauses and inflections that don't sound right. Here's the text they have on the site: Quote:
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03-25-2016, 12:05 PM | #64 |
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Great on My K5
I never used audiobooks before, but I also only watched TV while I knitted. I was really into a book, and wanted to knit, too, so I tried TTS. It worked great! When there was a word that wasn't right, I just looked on the K5 right next to me, and knitted along! There is not enough good TV to fill up the time I want to knit. Of course, baseball season is starting soon!
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03-25-2016, 01:06 PM | #65 | |
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03-30-2016, 06:13 PM | #66 |
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Google Now's Voice improving
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/30/11...smoother-sound |
03-31-2016, 01:20 PM | #67 |
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It is fascinating how much goes into creating TTS:
http://www.androidcentral.com/check-...ce-was-created It also gives me hope that in the not-too-distant-future TTS will be so natural no one will be able to tell the difference between it and a natural voice. |
03-31-2016, 09:36 PM | #68 | |
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04-01-2016, 11:02 AM | #69 |
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That's a good question. Google Now works with an online connection. I have seen the option in the past on Google Books to allow for online connection to get a better sounding voice. Not sure how integrated Google Books TTS is to this, but it would make sense that they would integrate it into Books.
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04-05-2016, 02:35 PM | #70 |
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I recently got the new $50 Fire tablet. My 9 year old daughter has a Kindle Touch. As an experiment, I had her listen to the TTS on both the KT and the Fire. She made a face at the Fire's TTS. It's not that the Fire's TTS is bad, it's just that she's so used to the KT's voice that it's like an old friend.
She actually likes the KT's TTS better than audiobooks (although not as much as me reading to her). My wife can't stand TTS, and I like it, but not as much as my daughter does. It really does take some training to get used to it. |
04-05-2016, 03:27 PM | #71 | |
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04-08-2016, 07:24 AM | #72 |
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For those of you who use iOS and the Kindle app, here's a way I figured out to get the app to read to you:
1. From your Home screen, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech 2. Enable "Speak screen". This will let you activate TTS by swiping two fingers from the top to the bottom of the screen. 3. Make sure you have chosen a voice. The higher quality voices may need to be downloaded. 4. When you are reading your Kindle app, swipe the screen as described above. iOS's native TTS should begin reading, and a pop-up control panel should also appear. Contrary to the description in the iOS Settings, TTS appears to continue reading your book from wherever you first activated it. I suspect this method would work with other e-reading apps. Last edited by LovesMacs; 04-08-2016 at 07:27 AM. Reason: Forgot Speech submenu |
10-24-2016, 12:52 PM | #73 |
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I have recently discovered that I can listen to books via text to speech. Some pronunciations are bizarre, but I can deal with it.
Somehow I was able to get FB Reader to play a male voice. I can't get Ivona to work on my 2014 LG Volt, but with the male voice working, I am happy. |
10-24-2016, 03:42 PM | #74 | |
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10-27-2016, 02:24 PM | #75 |
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Text-to-speech technology has come a long way. I use the built-in voice on my Kindle Fire. Some of the pronunciations are off, but mostly it's spot on. I think it's amazing. Then again, back in the day I thought the Atari graphics were super cool.
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