DSPEECH

HOME:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

DSpeech is a TTS (Text To Speech) program with functionality of ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) integrated. It is able to to read aloud the written text and choose the sentences to be pronounced based upon the vocal answers of the user. It is specifically designed to quickly and directly provide the functions and improved practical usefulness that are requested by this kind of program. In the meantime, the invasiveness and resource consumption is minimal. (DSpeech does not install itself, is very light, starts in a second and doesn't write anything to the registry). Some notable features of DSpeech are: 1. Allows you to save the output as a .WAV, .MP3 or OGG file. 2. Allows you to quickly select different voices, even combine them, or juxtapose them in order to create dialogues between different voices. 3. DSpeech integrates a vocal recognition system that, through a simple script language, allows you to create interactive dialogues with the user. 4. Allows you to configure the voices in an independent way. 5. Thanks to apposite TAGs, it allows you to dynamically change the features of the voices during the playback (speed, volume and frequency), to insert pauses, emphasize specific words, or even to spell them out. 6. Allows you to capture and reproduce the content of the ClipBoard. 7. DSpeech is compatible with all vocal engines (SAPI 4-5 compliant). 8. AI dialog system. Not really useful, but amusing. It does not work in every language.

• Listen a sample of dialogue from DSpeech:
• Overview of the advanced features of DSpeech:
• Download DSpeech v1.55.3 (Windows NT/2000/XP/VISTA) ca 800 KB

Other components you need to install

To open PDF files, you must download the DSpeech PDF Plug-In (ca 250 KB).

On Windows XP, if you want use SAPI4 voices, you must install SAPI4. Download it here (800 KB).

On Windows NT4/2000 you must install SAPI5, you can download it here or here (6 MB)

On Windows NT4/2000/XP, if you want use the Speech Recognition features, you must install the MS-Recognition Engine as well. Download it here (30 MB).

Where find the Voices

• SAPI5 voices are the best, but unfortunately often they are not distributed for free. The most famous are Cepstral, Acapela, Loquendo, RealSpeak and Voiceware.

RealSpeak: They are good voices and it seems that Microsoft will integrate them by default on Windows Vista.
British English, Italian, Spanish, French, German

eSpeak: It's a new open source engine in english (good) and in other languages (average).
Multilanguage

• SAPI4 voices, instead, have worse quality but are easier to find, and downloadable for free; the best are:

L&H TrueVoice: They have a good voice sampling, but wav and MP3 conversions are very slow.
American English, British English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Interface translation in other languages

DSpeech interface can be translated in several languages:

Italian (By Talksina & Marco Tettamanti)

Spanish (By Ricardo Abad & Esteban Mello)

Spanish Valencian (By Ricardo Abad)

Spanish Catalan (By Josep Rullo Batalla)

French (Jean-Paul DAVIN)

German (By Björn Gott)

Portuguese (By Ângelo Miguel)

Brazilian Portuguese (By Antonio Cezar Locutor and Abel P. do Nascimento Jr.)

Latin American Spanish (By Rafael Lopez Jr.)

Japanese (By Philip Deane)

Chinese (CHT) (By Hong Kong Blind Union)

Czech Republic (By Janusz Chmiel)

Romanian (By Irina Popovici)

HOME:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/