I'm not familiar with the specific device, but I'd say its highly unlikely that it would be trying to use a sapi voice you have on your computer. Mp3 players don't exactly have high-capacity processors or ram, so I'd be shocked if it lets you just go ahead and install any voice you like (and if it does, expect it to be slow). The realspeak voices take up a lot of system resources even on a computer, let alone a device like an mp3 player.

Rockbox (the name of the custom firmware that make these things speak) is made self voicing by recording sound files for the various strings of the interface, plus basic things like numbers and letters, very much like self voicing audio games. The Rockbox utility (the application used to install and update rockbox on the device) can generate this with a sapi voice of your choosing, though you can also download pregenerated speech that was made with Festival (remember the voice from the 7-128 games? Yeah, that thing.) There is a second part to this, called Talkbox, also in the rockbox utility, which can additionally generate speech for your file names. You don't have to use it though and if you haven't recorded file names, the player will just spell them out.
If you want to buy one of these players you really shouldn't buy it from talking mp3 players though. Yes, they preinstall Rockbox on it so you don't have to but they charge a rediculous premium, which will be made even worse by overseas shipping costs. I just checked on amazon and the 4GB clip ZIP costs 30 pounds, which is much, much less than what they would charge you for it. Rockbox installation is very easy and should only take 10 or 15 minutes and you can use the saved money to get yourself a bigger SD card or buy some more audio dramas to put on it.

If you want to generate the speech yourself, then I honestly see no point in getting the Talking MP3 player version of the clip zip. It's like getting a car, paying extra to get it painted, then you take it home and paint it again yourself.
If you want to check accessibility, the rockbox utility is a small free download (rockbox is open source so you won't be getting any junk with it), so just download it, run it, look around the UI and see if supernova's coaping with it.

Hello,
I discovered something today. It seems you can't look around the UI of the Rockbox utility unless you actually have a compatable device plugged in, unless they fixed that in an update that I don't yet have.
Also, the way combo boxes work is a bit weird, again unless hey fixed it. In my version you have to press enter on the box to go into it, but then it works as normal.

The Victor stream isn't as bad price wise as I thought, though my major concern, apart from being specifically tied to lots of service providers, is whether the Usb mp3 function works in a streight forward way. Dazy I find an annoying format most of the time, (indeed it's only glorified mp3s with some extra indexing), and I can ignore stuff like the Itunes and audible accounts sinse if I buy something I want to actually own the files and choose what device I play them on, however given how restrictive a lot of specifically designed blind tech is, I am not sure if I could just bang a victor stream into the usb and copy folders across as I want them.

As to networking, ---- welll meh, I'll worry about it if I ever see a reason for it, at the moment I don't sinse I'm happy with what I have, and just want the easiest way to take what I have elsewhere with me now apple have ballsed up the Iphone completely.

This is also why I will at least consider buying the ready modded Sansa, sinse frankly I'm just sick of pissing about with all this hyper complex software crap! It doesn't interest me and I don't really care, I just want something I can stick in the usb and bang folders of mp3 music or books on and take with me to play when I'm out and about, ---- really it shouldn't be this much of a hassle.

Well it's not so much copying into obscure folders as just wanting one thing for one fairly standard job, this is after all how I approach technology generally, bugger trends and numbers and other such rubbish, what does it do for me, if it doesn't do anything then it's no use! The victor stream might be a possibility though I'll have to balance lower drive size and probably a lot of extra functions I'll never use (plus a higher price), over the Sansa or something else.

I'm not above buying a basic mainstream player, however I've not seen many around recently that would be even vaguely operational, plus sinse I like to bang five or six books and some music on the player to have some choice when I'm out and about (I did this with all satellites), accessible folders, ie, knowing what they are without reading the screen even if I could memorize a menu would be nice.

I admit I probably am sounding harsher on this and other tech questions than I should be at the second, it just seems for reasons I will not discuss my life is fairly grim at the moment thus I don't really have the patience I should, especially with large faceless organizations who change stuff on a whim.

Well in the case of the victor stream, when I say "blindy" what I mean is more restrictive. For example the victor readers the rnib talking book service use have a lot of design flaws that were clearly intended for people not used to technology, for example you can't directly pull out a disk or jump to time in a specific file, and the machine also has zero to no battery life. It plays dazy disks, but is pretty useless at anything else (heck it doesn't even output in sterrio).

With the victor stream my problem is if I turn the thing on and it says "please connect me to a dazy service" and I have to effectively hit it with a crowbar to get it to do what I want, (I've been sick of doing that with Itunes), though if it will read folder names by default that might be helpful. I'll check the manual and see exactly how complicated the process of banging stuff onto the thing directly through the usb is and whether in fact the machine will cope with that or object, likewise I'll check some of the talking mp3 player stuff for the file names business.

In terms of extras, well I'm not bothered about playing games or using a calculator sinse I'll still have my Iphone. An fm radio or voice recorder on either machine might be handy at some points, and I could see a use with the victor stream's text reading function at some points, particularly taking sets of words with me to music rehearsals, but I'm primarily interested in just the ability to play mp3s.

As I said, my "blindy" comment was more in concern of restriction, but if in fact the Victor stream is not restricted as say the Victor reader machine the Rnib uses (can't recall the model but I assume you know the ones I mean), then hay that is cool!

I'm not diametrically opposed to tech specifically designed for blind people as long as it A, does what it is supposed to without locking you in thrawl to some service or to sighted people, and B, doesn't either cost the earth or still worse, cost a lot of money for something that could be done a lot more easily by another mainstream product, eg, talking phones that cost about twice as much as an Iphone, or specifically designed braille note type machines that are two or three times more expensive than a conventional laptop and (other than the braille writing), don't do much else.

Heck, I use my penfriend every time I want to watch a dvd, it cost 50 quid and is awsome! (if it weren't a little large and didn't have less than one gb of capacity I could use the penfriend! as an mp3 player).

Getting back to the point, the Victor Stream is indeed less expensive than I thought, sinse last I heard they were closer to 500 than 200 or so and it sounds like unless I go through talkmp3players I'll have shenanigans with rockbox that I probably don't want.
I do want to tripple check though that standard usb foldder transfer onto the victor stream isn't going to be a problem, and that I don't need to wangle with any specific software or with the machine itself.

Oh and yes, I agree on governmental bennifits.

Edit: okay, looking at the victor manual it sounds like you can just copy across directly provided you put stuff into the right folder, and the folders do at least have sensible names even if they do start with dollar signs.

I also like the idea that you can replace the sd card for the machine. One thing I was considering with the Sansa clip was having a 64 gb sd card, well nice to know I still can, indeed from the sound of the manual it actually sounds like I could just get one of those little usb sd card holders  rather than charging the player itself, (my laptop has an sd card slot but I don't think my esktop does).

I'll phone humanware this morning and ask them questions.

Edit: okay, it's done. I phoned humanware and got a very useful fellow who gave me very streight forward answers about what folders to stick where. While I have paid more for the device than I intended, it wasn't insanely! more! and I think the ease of use is a payofff. It's going to be so nice just to be able to copy books and music over and not having to go through all that playlist malarchy.

The machine is also turning up tomorrow morning, so credit to Humanware on quick posting

while I'm fairly sure people will see me as selling out to the blindopoly, as I said I'm just sick of the hassle and in this case the machine will do what I want it to do with a minimum of fuss.

Hi Aaron.

I don't know about rockbox and supernova either, but generally as I said supernova copes with most things that aren't completely random, for example Kchess, Avg, smugglers, progress quest etc, (one reason why Itunes 12 being such a bastard was so surprising and why I blaime stupid apple for removing the sidebars and arsing up the layout). Even if by any chance it didn't, if Rockbox has a sapi option there is always that for an alternative. It is more that I simply can't be bothered at the moment with new software, installing this, tweaking that, and that business of naming files with audio, it's just way more trouble than I really feel like going through at the second just for something that I can put in my pocket which plays audio files, after all sighted people can just buy any generic player, read the screen and don't have all the shenanigans.

The chap I spoke to was indeed good, he used the thing himself apart from working for Humanware so he knew sufficiently about it, he even advised me not to buy a larger sd card from humanware sinse he said I could get a more expensive one elsewhere. I wanted to ask about the machine because while the manual is very clear, it starts off on the dazy options and mentions playing of other files later, and sinse Dazy has fairly limited availability that isn't exactly my main focus, I get dazy stuff from the Rnib occasionally but most of the stuff in my collection is mp3.

he also let me know about file and folder structure, indeed it's going to be a real relief to just be able to copy say one of my main book series folders and have all the individual books in their numbered subfolders play in order rather than mess around with Itunes and creating playlists for each individual book and all that other rubbish. Sinse I'm something of a stickler for file organization and use folders to do that (particularly with books), that is a feature I definitely like.

I have heard low volume is an issue, but I suspect %90 of the time I'll be using the thing through my Sanheisa earbuds anyway rather than the default speaker. I've also heard people say that the Usb transfer is a bit slow and that it's better to take the sd card out and transfer onto that directly. I'll give it a try though and see what it's like, sinse generally I don't mind waiting for transfers as long as it's not too insane, though if worst comes to worst I can always just buy one of those usb sd card holders, (I don't believe my desktop has an sd card slot).

There are also a couple of functions on the Victor that, while I didn't buy it for! those functions might come in handy, particularly ability to search for and download or stream podcasts, and to stream internet radio (classic fm has an internet radio stream that I've used on occasion so that is okay).

I'm quite looking forward to the Victor coming tomorrow morning, indeed I'm impressed at their next day delivery service.