2018-02-03 19:09:45

Mac OSX does indeed support third party voices. Acapela still works, Cepstral used to, Eloquence partially integrated, you name it. Someone on Twitter said they had somehow gotten their hands on an Espeak for mac osx that was compiled and working with voiceover, but had lost it.

2018-02-03 19:42:39

Cepstral macintosh voices are still supported, they are range from 10 USD to 45 USD.

2018-02-04 06:30:38

Na, count me out. If it meant I had to throw any money at something that hasn't been updated since the turn of the century then yeah I'm good. I actually bought it on Android, but once I discovered the always connected licence system I promptly uninstalled it. I bought you're product, why should I have to check in with the big boss every 24 hours just to make sure your precious inflated ego remains intact?

2018-02-04 07:23:48

Man I'd love eloquence on IOS. But I just recently switch to the S8 and am not looking back. Yes i have eloquence on my s8 for sure and I love it!!!!!!

2018-02-04 13:32:01 (edited by flackers 2018-02-04 13:34:10)

Eloquence's not being updated will only become relevant for me when a human-sounding alternative catches up, and then it won't matter because Eloquence will be redundant. That's the other puzzle: what's taking so long?

2018-02-04 13:33:54

I'm glad their license check isn't so frequent on PCs, I think it's like every 30 days, annoying, but tolerable.

2018-02-04 15:10:28

The thing with that, Orco, is that as long as it is actually 30 days as we think, it is at least predictable. If it were that way on Android I'd probably end up buying it, but it isn't, possibly because of the phone being a practically always online device thanks to mobile data, but they don't take into account short data outages in some areas.

2018-02-04 17:16:51

Hello.

Thank you all for your comments.
Yes, seems impossible to have eloquence in IOS.

thanks.
Cheers.

2018-02-04 19:36:50

I dono what yall are saying about human sounding voices not being good for long text documents. Alex on phone and mac its fine on high speeds, better than eloquence in fact.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2018-02-04 20:21:02

I tend to agree. Alex is very good, doesn't have the same amount of artifacting that other voices have.

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2018-02-04 20:43:22

TTS just like lots of other things is personal taste. I would be the happyest with Espeak, and some people could never use it.

2018-02-04 21:07:30

TTS voices aren't just personal preference but also what you are accustomed to. For example, most JAWS users prefer Eloquence because it is the default voice that JAWS is set up to use.

2018-02-04 21:30:34 (edited by flackers 2018-02-04 21:44:48)

It probably is subjective in terms of what exactly gets on your nerves about a particular synth. The thing that stops me from using the human-sounding voices is that thing they have of appearing to speed up and slow down, making some sentences sound jerky. I find I have to pay more attention and can't get lost in the story because I'm having to focus on the text too much. Here's a couple of samples of Alex and Eloquence reading the same bit of opening text at roughly normal speaking rate. This is the one and only book I tried to read on my phone and decided it wasn't good enough. It may just be that the prose is so clunky that no TTS voice could make it sound smooth. Maybe I just picked a bad book to start with, but Alex like all human TTS's to me at least, sounds at times like a tape machine that needs oiling.
Alex:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qug59jasj37dtvy/Alex.mp3?dl=0
Eloquence:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7zugdhbwaorif … e.mp3?dl=0

2018-02-04 21:59:53

Flackers, At a normal speed like that, I must say I agree that eloquence does a better job than alex. However I personally have my alex set much much faster than that, and it reads fine. At slow speeds like that though it does sound quite robotic and does seem to drone on and on in a robotic rattley voice.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2018-02-04 22:13:35

That might be the trouble. I have my screen reader set at normalish speaking rate for books because I like to relax and leisurely absorb what's being said. Having it set fast is great when you just need to get the info into your brain, but for novels particualrly, I like it more laid back. Like if events happen too fast, you don't really get a chance to visualise them properly before they're gone.

2018-02-05 02:39:25

I mean, yes, sure, any synthesiser can seem to be acceptable once you've listened to enough of it. I use Daniel full-time now, despite his flaws, and it took me a while to get comfortable with it. But, really, just going back to Eloquence provides plenty enough comfort in a few short minutes to remind me of what I've lost as a nearly full-time Mac and iOS user. It's like lossy format audio compression, you know--once you're familiar with it, you become less incensed--or less aware--of the losses being incurred. I'm sure the JAWS default aspect is part of what keeps people using Eloquence, but I'm also fairly confident that it really is an excellent quality synth that, again despite its flaws, people will want to keep coming back to. That's the rub, for me, and I don't think it's an accident that many of us seem to agree. And I've used many, many synths--the ones I've been most fond of, from Dolphin's Orpheus to DECTalk to Keynote/Berkeley Speech to Eloquence, are all formant-based.

Just myself, as usual.

2018-02-07 04:14:21

Flackers, since you like to absorb information from the books, why not just listen to audiobooks? That's usually what I do, I hardly ever if it all read from a word file with my screenreader, in fact I'm not sure I like doing that. I will read from my phone if the audiobook isn't available on ibooks, but other than that I mostly read audiobooks.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2018-02-07 12:27:46 (edited by flackers 2018-02-07 12:47:12)

I still do listen to audios, but I started reading ebooks for a couple of reasons. The main one is that lots more books are available in ebook form, and if you have a pearl camera and OpenBook or some other quick way to scan paperbacks, pretty much all text books are accessible. Before it was possible for me to read ebooks, I found it quite depressing to listen to sighted people talking about books I had no way of reading. Probably a similar thing happens to blind gamers.

2018-02-07 13:37:45

Or hearing about TV shows or movies that you'd like to see that aren't audio described.

2018-02-07 17:06:54

I can attest you do get used to voices. I hate the sound of eSpeak, it sounds tinny, metallic, robotic, and the injected consonants sound unnatural; however, when I was using Linux as my daily OS, I did get used to it after a time. When I moved back to Windows though, I was glad to be shot of it. So, I did get used to it, but I never liked it all that much.

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2018-02-08 00:42:42

If you guys want Eloquence on iOS and/or macOS, send an email to the [email protected] address. The more that do this, the more likely it will happen. Apple has listened to user feedback for more voices, so I see no reason why this wouldn't work. Apple has a contract with Nuance. Nuance owns the rights to Eloquence. Apple and Nuance should be able to port the synthesizer. I personally can't stand Eloquence, but it just adds more user choice.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-02-08 00:58:30

@Chris, no offense, but if you actually cared to read the topic, first to last, you would know that people have already tried this and it hasn't worked. And we can't make a petition -- absolutely no one would sign it. Frankly, I loathe Apple and prefer Google any day over Apple.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2018-02-08 01:17:20

@47 Usually, when people say no offense, they tend to mean some offense, you've hit that mark by butting in here and throwing your weight around once again. Also as usual, you don't have anything constructive to add.

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2018-02-08 06:21:16 (edited by Ethin 2018-02-08 06:27:11)

@48, and, once again, you start bitching at me just because I decide to post on here. I'm not throwing my weight around. Get rid of that grudge you have against me -- it won't solve shit. As I was saying though, that's not "throwing my weight around" -- that's stating a fact. That he suggested something that was already suggested and that got rejected more than once on this topic, and that we couldn't make a petition for it because no one would sign, and by no one, I mean no one influential. Sure, half this forum might sign... doesn't mean anyone has to acknowledge the petitions existence at all. Plus, when you write a petition, your request needs to be 'convincing'. If it's not convincing enough, no one's going to sign. And I know that because I've seen some very badly-written petitions. And the signers were less than a thousand on one. If I hadn't stated it, someone else would have. So, if all your going to say about my posts is how I'm supposedly doing x, y, and z, and how you, personally, don't like me doing x, y, and z, don't post at all, will you? I don't want to here it. Your not making things better by posting it, your not being helpful in the slightest by posting it, and frankly I'm getting tired of it.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2018-02-08 07:04:37

Eh, I don't have a grudge against you, I just don't like your attitude all that much, if at all. You always come on here acting like the gods own step child as if pasting things from dictionary is akin to actually having the knowledge in the first place, as if googling a subject and taking 30 to 45 seconds to look up the most rudimentary information makes you an expert on it.

I've never seen you post anything that doesn't have some heir of haughtiness or arrogance behind it, and just as frankly, I'm getting tired of it too.

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