Hi Mark,
Brett's answered about the Acapela Group's offerings for the Mac,
which are sold as Infovox voices. What's a bit more confusing are
some of the package options and how the actual purchasing gets done.
You purchase the voices by package (U.S. English, U.K. English,
French, Canadian French, Spanish, U.S. Spanish, Italian, etc.). The
U.S. Heather voice is included in every package. In the U.S., you'd
purchase the voices from Origin Instruments in Texas, and it's easiest
to either email them or call them up directly, since, although they
offer all the Assistiveware options, they typically list only a few of
these and just a few of the languages on their web site. They
generate a license file for you based on your email address and name,
and you usually get that the same day as your order. (My U.S. English
license got generated with my name misspelled, so I have to remember
to type it in that way to activate the software on a new machine.)
There are also household license bundles for multiple users.
The Infovox voice samples and download links are at:
http://www.assistiveware.com/ivoxsamples.php
There's a 30-day free trial.
Anne answered some questions about licensing recently:
http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg19162.html
Here's an archived post about purchasing voice in the U.S.:
http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg05312.html
(Summary Information on Heather and other Infovox voice purchase
options from U.S.)
There's a GhostReader option that's described there that is a $10 add-
on to your Infovox bundle. Although this lower cost text to speech
option is not designed with the visually impaired in mind, there's an
undocumented neat feature that allows you to switch voices (and
languages) in GhostReader when a control sequence is encountered.
(This is great if you want to read a text file with multiple languages
or dialogues in multiple voices). There's also a nice menu option for
recording to audio file, and GhostReader can work with any of the
Infovox voices you purchase. Indeed, since the GhostReader voice
versions are lower-bit, compressed versions of the InfoVox voices, and
only work within the app for reading mail, web pages, and documents
(as opposed to working with all applications with VoiceOver, system-
wide), you'll want to use the Infovox voice versions you purchase,
instead.
If I open TextEdit and have:
\vce=speaker=Heather\I prefer to use English
\vce=speaker=Julie\Chacun à son goût
The first phrase with be read by Heather (an American voice) and the
second phrase will be read by Julie with French intonation. This only
works to switch voices in GhostReader.
You can also try out the Cepstral voices:
http://cepstral.com/demos/
But these are currently unstable in Snow Leopard. I've also bought
one of the Cereproc voices, but these caused VoiceOver to crash (i.e.,
read as way more unstable). They don't have trial downloads but you
might enjoy visiting their web page and sampling their "celebrity
voices". They've recently built a custom voice for Roger Ebert.
If you happen to speak Japanese (I don't), I could point you to a
Japanese web page for DTalker, but I think they don't have the
revisions for full Snow Leopard compatibility working yet.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
On 21 Apr 2010, M. Taylor wrote:
Thank you, Brett; thank you.
Mark
Get to know yourself as you get to know me on The Secret Life of
Mark Marcus
Live Talk Show
http://candleshore.com/secrets
-----Original Message-----
From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
[mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brett Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 10:48 AM
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Acapela voice purchasing [was Re: Where Is Samantha, on
the
Mac?]
Mark,
I'm certainly not Esther, but here is a link, in case you don't wish
to
wait. You're looking for Infovox. In my opinion, Heather is the
best of
the U.S. voices, but they require you to purchase multiple voices as a
package.
http://assistiveware.com/
Brett C.
On Apr 21, 2010, at 11:39 AM, M. Taylor wrote:
Esther, et al,
From where may I purchase Acapela Voice Packages? Or any other voice
packages that will work on my Mac?
Thank you,
Mark
Get to know yourself as you get to know me on The Secret Life of Mark
Marcus
Live Talk Show
http://candleshore.com/secrets
-----Original Message-----
From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
[mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Esther
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 5:03 AM
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Subject: Acapela voice purchasing [was Re: Where Is Samantha, on
the Mac?]
Hi Marie,
I've changed the subject line, since we're talking now about the
Infovox voices from Acapela. One additional piece of information is
that you get the Heather voice with every voice pack you purchase.
So, if you purchased the Spanish voices or the U.K. English voices,
you'd also get the U.S. Heather voice.
Cheers,
Esther
marie Howarth wrote:
yes, i think there should be an option to buy individual voices. I
like heather and I think its Emily. Ryan's OK too but one or two
voices doesn't justify me buying a whole bunch of voices, like you
said, taking up room. Maybe if enough people email them they might
consider it an option. haha, and then again, maybe not.
On 21 Apr 2010, at 11:10, Nicolai Svendsen wrote:
Hi,
See, I asked them about this. APparently, Acapela does not permit
sales of separate voices. THis is apparently because of agencies.
They seem to find it a better solution to just buy a package that
suits your needs so you can choose, rather than agencies and such
having to buy multiple times.
I guess I can see that, but it would be nice. I don't want a lot of
those voices taking space on my computer. The only ones I really
care about are Peter and Heather. let's complain!
Regards,
Nic
Mobile Me: nic2...@me.com
Skype: Kvalme
MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk
AIM: cincinster
yahoo Messenger: cin368
Facebook Profile
My Twitter
On Apr 21, 2010, at 12:04 PM, marie Howarth wrote:
I love Alex too and use him pretty much all of the time. I
trialled other voices from infovox and such but could not bring
myself to pay $99 for one set of voices. I understand now why they
cost so much but even still I just can't justify that much money
for 4 or 5 voices and I like a mix of the british and American
voices so would need to buy two packs and I'm also learning
spanish so would have kinda liked one of the spanish voices too,
you can see my dilemma. lol
On 21 Apr 2010, at 10:05, Nicolai Svendsen wrote:
Hi,
Well, it'd be a surprise, sure. But more voices provides more
choices. I love Alex, though.
Regards,
Nic
Mobile Me: nic2...@me.com
Skype: Kvalme
MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk
AIM: cincinster
yahoo Messenger: cin368
Facebook Profile
My Twitter
On Apr 21, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Rob wrote:
I can see her on portable devices, but full macs? I wonder how
it would be received, compared to Alex.
Sent from my iPod
On Apr 21, 2010, at 1:58 AM, Sarah Alawami <marri...@gmail.com>
wrote:
She is by newance I believe so I don't think yu will find this
voice on teh mac unless there is a newance version of this for
os10?
Tc
S
On Apr 20, 2010, at 11:34 PM, M. Taylor wrote:
Thank you for your response.
But how can this be? Is she not the beloved voice of the
iPhone, iPod
Touch, and iPad?
Perhaps I refer to her by the wrong name?
Mark
Get to know yourself as you get to know me on The Secret Life
of Mark Marcus
Live Talk Show
http://candleshore.com/secrets
-----Original Message-----
From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
[mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of gkearney
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 11:12 PM
To: MacVisionaries
Subject: Re: Where Is Samantha, on the Mac?
I fear you shall not find symmetry in your world...Samantha
is a
Microsoft Windows SAPI voice and is not an option for
Macintosh users.
Gregory Kearney
Manager Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Ave
Victoria Park, WA 6100'
AUSTRALIA
+61 08 9311 8246
On Apr 21, 9:20 am, "M. Taylor" <mk...@ucla.edu> wrote:
Hello Everyone,
Call me slow but I only just now realized that my beloved
Samantha is not
on
my Mac. All I have, of any quality anyway, is Alex.
Where is she? Please tell me that I can download her to my
Mac so I can
achieve perfect symmetry in my world. (Smile)
Mark**
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