DSpeech: Terrific Treasure for all kinds of Text and Speech Operations

DSpeech gives you free text to speech, text to mp3 and wav conversion, voice recording and speech to text - all from a flash drive!
I was exploring Access Apps, a free downloadable accessibility suite from RCS in Scotland, that runs from a flash drive. I was exploring for Mp3 conversion tools and one of the tools was DSpeech. I will be sharing more on Access Apps on another post, but wanted to specifically share the DSpeech today. You can opt to download it from the link at the top and just use it off a flash drive or your computer if you don't want the full downloaded suite in AccessApps. (More to come on the tools on the AccessApps suite.)
DSpeech can import text files in many formats and read them aloud. There is a box to check that shows tracking so that words are highlighted as they are read. Text can be converted to wav or mp3 files to download and listen on a portable player or they can be heard through the computer.
I used the speech to text tool and found that if I spoke slowly and clearly, I could get most of what I said to print okay. I could then save that as a text file. I found that under options, if I configured the ASR (automatic speech recognition) with the pull-down menu choice, SAPI Developer, I got better results with the computer interpreting my voice. There are recorder buttons on the program also to record messages and read text outloud to create Mp3/wav files as well. The website says you can do conversational things with the text and set up new voices by blending other voices - I haven't explored it that deep yet, but it has great potential. When you choose a voice, you get an avatar at the top that blinks and talks when the text to speech is activated. This will definitely be a draw for students!
I recorded some sound files, used the speech to text, copied an article from Word I had taken off the Internet and turned it into an mp3 file. Everything worked great.

Because DSpeech can run off a jump or flash drive, nothing has to be installed on a computer. A student can carry the jump drive with them and store files on it as well. The interface uses any voices you have on a computer. Mine had the Voiceware VW Paul and VW Kate. I liked them the best. I think I got them when I downloaded a free version of Natural Reader. The voices extended themselves over to the DSpeech which made a much more natural sounding voice so you might want to try downloading the free version of Natural Reader and see.

If you are looking for some great accessibility tools for voice, text and mp3, check out DSpeech. It's a great tool.

All the best to you!

Lon




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Using Spanish Voices for Text to Speech

Yesterday I worked with an assistant in a classroom that was scanning a childrens book in spanish to use with a student learning spanish. We scanned several pages as text files and put them into Wordpad.
Once we had 4 pages of text, we highlighted it and copy/pasted it into the Natural Reader free download player. The reader read the text but it was an English voice and so the pronunciations were all wrong. Since the assistant was Hispanic, she got a kick out of the wrong pronunciation but was visibly disappointed because she had done all this work in trying to scan and build the e text into an audio book.
"I read it and recorded it at home with a microphone on our computer." she said.
What a novel idea! (I am just kidding) but she is right - after I showed her how to scan a book, paste the text into a reader, record it and convert it to an Mp3, we are back to just reading and recording it. I am partially responsible for her disappointment because I hadn't thought about the spanish issue in pronunciation. I know now.
Natural Reader has a set of voices for $49.95 that have 2 great English voices, 1 French and 1 Spanish as well as some others. Premier Literacy has a voice selection menu with a Cepstral Spanish voice. Since the school I am working with on this project is applying for the grant from Premier Literacy to get their software package, they are waiting to use the Spanish voice on it instead of buying the Natural Reader package.
The lesson learned in this is that I can get in a "geek mode" and start doing all kinds of converting and cool tricks and forget the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) motto. I know that everyone always has the option to just read and record a chapter, but there is some kind of power we exercise when we can scan our own textbook, paste the text into a reader and see it read and hear it as well. Having an Mp3 of it to listen to "on the go" is also a great option for students. I want to empower them to be able to do this for themselves.
The assistant I am working with is still looking forward to being in charge of making Mp3's and working on accessible text for those students that need it. She is also going to help students learn how to do this for themselves once she has got it down. I just thought I would share my thoughts on this with you and what it meant to me today.
I would value your comments - what do you think? Is it overkill to skip the Mp3 download off a blog because of copyright concerns and use the Audacity tool or should we just hook up a microphone to the computer and start recording while we read to save time and trouble?
Let's hear your thoughts.

All the best to you!
Lon



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