Good Text-to-Speech solution for Windows [closed]

Good Text-to-Speech solution for Windows [closed] I am running Windows 7 and I know it has the ability to read me text in my applications, but I am looking for a good utility to save chunks of text as a wav file or mp3. It may already be built into the OS, but cleverly disguised. I know I can write a program to call the API, which is my next step if there isn't a good solution already.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 394

Total answers/comments: 1

Comments display order:

Guest [Entry]

"I've tried espeak, festival, and MaryTTS. They all generate understandable voices for the most part but they are not very natural. Even with additional voice downloads for these systems (e.g. Mbrola, CMU Arctic) the voices are not that great.

IVONA voices are the best I've heard so far. They give you a 30 day free demo which is enough if you have a one-off task to do. After that they are like $45/voice. Amazon just bought the company so you know it's solid (http://www.ivona.com/us/news/amazoncom-announces-acquisition-of-ivona-software/).

They work with Microsoft's SAPI interface which means the voices are available to any program that supports that (e.g. Adobe Reader). I've been using them with Text To Wav program which is nice for bulk conversion of text files into wave files.

Edit

Actually just re-read your question and I think for non-personal use (e.g. podcasts) the price is probably a lot higher for IVONA. In that case I'd say check out MaryTTS."