Re: Software Speech (Re: ibm tts run-time engine purchasingalternatives)

["T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There will always be losers who complain, typically they are also
easy easily identifiable as ones who've never written any code,
which usually leaves spare cycles for typing lots of messages
about how everything should be  given to them as a birthright.


>>>>> "John" == John G Heim <jheim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
    John> T. V. Raman wrote:
    >> Most of the crashes you are seeing -- both the older
    >> ViaVoice and Software Dectalk are a result of their
    >> writing directly to the audio device using OSS.
    John> 
    John> DECtalk stops talking pretty regularly for me. In an
    John> hour I probably have to use the C-e C-s key sequence 2
    John> or 3 times. But sometimes it stops when the machine is
    John> idle. It's no great shakes to restart it so it's more
    John> of a minor nuicance than it is a huge problem. It's a
    John> couple of seconds to realize it's down and then a
    John> couple more to restart it.  So I'm wasting maybe 10-15
    John> seconds an hour restarting it.
    John> 
    John> JAWS for Windows stops sometimes too and that product
    John> costs $1200.  I used to have to restart JAWS 2 or 3
    John> times a day. To be honest though, I now use version 7
    John> and it almost never crashes.  My point is that IMO, for
    John> the price, DECtalk isn't too bad. I haven't tried
    John> flight or festival since I bought DECtalk 4.6. But I
    John> bought DECtalk because to my ear, it was worth $50 for
    John> the added clarity of speech.  I would have bought
    John> ViaVoice had it been available because, again to my
    John> ear, it was the clearest of them all.
    John> 
    John> Honestly, I have no complaints with any of the linux
    John> stuff. Emacspeak, oralux, speakup, DECtalk,
    John> ... Compared to the cost of other accessibility
    John> equipment and even compared to Windows products, they
    John> work really well and are either low cost or free. This
    John> stuff is really great.
    John> 
    John> I looked into a new "low cost" brailler called a Jot A
    John> Dot. It was $345. I saw a new accessible cell phone
    John> announced recently for $200. JAWS for Windows is $1200.
    John> 
    John> Emacspeak flight, festival, and speakup are
    John> free. DECtalk is $50.  How can you complain?
    John> 
    John> 
    John> 
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-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

      
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