Voices in Mac OS X

Jump to First Reply
zenatekzenatek
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hey,



I think it would be awesome if my computer could actually talk to me. Now I know apple has all that already built in but it sounds like just well crappy.



Why can't apple create or license something like this website is offering.



http://www.oddcast.com/sitepal/



if you go there and click text to speech on the top meny and then try now and try the kate voice its amazing how good it sounds. I think that would just be freakin sweet if my alerts were read by that voice.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,568member
    I agree, it would be nice if Apple could dramatically improve the Text to speech option. However, I tried this site then tried the same phrases in OS X and didn't find a huge difference though it was better. OS X seems to make rougher transitions between words.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 2 of 8
    squozensquozen Posts: 66member
    http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/voiceover.html



    Sounds a lot better than Panther to me.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 3 of 8
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,568member
    Try this demo:



    http://www.cepstral.com/cgi-bin/demos/general



    I thought that the Frank voice was really good. This is available for OS X.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 4 of 8
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,568member
    Anyone know why text-to-speech doesn't sound better? I heard a news item on the radio perhaps five years ago asserting that by using samples of human voice text-to-speech systems would sound so natural that they would be used in movies to voice animated features. So far as I know we are far short of that level of quality.



    It would be fantastic if I could down load a bunch of news items and have them read back to me by Richard Burton or Walter Kronkite's voice (or Don Knotts' voice if I was feeling silly!).
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 5 of 8
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    Those voices are cool!



    Maybe Apple is holding off on good voices because of the family values groups? I can only imagine getting ahold of a real sexy woman's voice, them typing in what I want her to say! Almost too virtual reality for some, perhaps.



    Or maybe I'm just a sick fuck. I've considered that possibility a few times more than I like.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 6 of 8
    zenatekzenatek Posts: 203member
    Yes none of the voices anyone has mentioned come close to that website... Thats my question, why cant they come close to a website service? And yes that Kate voice is quite nice, for a computer!
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 7 of 8
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    It'd be neat if they built ViaVoice like dicatation in to OS X. They already have the recognition, I imagine it wouldn't be much of a leap. However currently, recognition is sketchy. And the voices are certainly subpar. This was one of the most exciting things I was looking forward to in Tiger.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 8 of 8
    ichiban_jayichiban_jay Posts: 660member
    the best voice I have heard is by Scansoft (maker of paperport, dragon naturally speaking, and via voice).



    Interactive Demo here:

    http://scansoft.com/speechworks/realspeak/demo/



    cepstral's voices sound like CRAP when compared to scansoft's too bad realspeak does not integrate with OSX
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
Sign In or Register to comment.