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Text-To-Speech
Post by joker on Nov 2nd, 2015, 09:51am

Richard, I ran across your program "_speech.bas" while researching the task of getting Windows to speak a few phrases.

It works well on my Win7 setup, but I'm curious how well you think this method will stand up as time marches on. Perhaps there's a much better way that you are familiar with?

I was actually creating a hardware solution when I started with the "due diligence" Windows search. Anyone else know of a solution?

EDIT: I did find this link: http://basic.wikispaces.com/Calling+methods+in+COM+objects

EDIT2: Also this one: http://basic.wikispaces.com/SpeechLibrary
Re: Text-To-Speech
Post by Richard Russell on Nov 2nd, 2015, 10:59am

on Nov 2nd, 2015, 09:51am, pnlawrence wrote:
It works well on my Win7 setup, but I'm curious how well you think this method will stand up as time marches on.

Assuming the program you are referring to is this one it uses the native SAPI5 API, which comes as standard with Windows and, as far as I can see from that MSDN reference, is still the preferred way of accessing the text-to-speech engine in Windows 10 (when not using managed code).

Quote:
Perhaps there's a much better way that you are familiar with?

What is the source of your concern? All the other ways of achieving speech synthesis in Liberty BASIC (that I am aware of) rely on third-party DLLs, which I would expect to be more vulnerable to potential compatibility and reliability issues than the native API supported by Microsoft.

Richard.
Re: Text-To-Speech
Post by joker on Nov 2nd, 2015, 11:07am

Concern? Windows 10 was my concern, but you slayed that dragon for me! Thanks!

This will be perfect in my project, since I only have a few short phrases to speak ... over and over ... the same each time. This will save me a hardware project, too.

As it turns out, there is only one voice available for Win7 and typical of MS you get what they provide and that's it.
Re: Text-To-Speech
Post by Richard Russell on Nov 2nd, 2015, 2:35pm

on Nov 2nd, 2015, 11:07am, pnlawrence wrote:
As it turns out, there is only one voice available for Win7 and typical of MS you get what they provide and that's it.

Microsoft Anna I think, but you can of course download others (not necessarily free though). There are some nice SAPI5 voices available (at a cost) from http://www.textaloud.com/ . As a test I purchased Ivona Brian (a British English voice) and selected it in the LB program thus:

Code:
   data "<voice required='name=IVONA 2 Brian OEM'>This is a demonstration of speech synthesis</voice>"

Richard.