forum.vdsworld.com

[Eddyy]

Any dll or anything for VDS to make a script read alloud any given text?

[webdaddy]

No but you could use the Microsoft agent to do such things. I think it is still around. Thats the route I would take.

[jules]

But you would still need a DLL to use it.

[jwfv]

A non-dll workaround (though maybe a little bit of overkill) would be to convert the text to a .PDF (via free Ghostscript) and then have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader read it out loud.

You could have a hidden dialog with a browser element, load the PDF via Acrobat reader, and send it a Shift-CTRL-B and it will read the text out loud.

[jules]

I didn't know the Acrobat Reader could do that. But then, I'm still using version 5.

[jwfv]

Version 7 can do it. I like version 7 - it seems to load faster and run smoother than version 6, at least.

[FreezingFire]

You know what I would pay for? A DLL that supported the reading of text
out loud. I would really like to see that for a DLL.

[jules]

I just added this ability to one of my Delphi programs. Funnily enough, I was thinking of making a VDS extension that could do it, since having figured out how to do it, it's pretty easy. But I was going to do it as a bundled extension for VDS 6, rather than make it available separately.

You would still need to install the Microsoft Speech API. It would not be possible to create an extension that contains its own speech engine.

[Skit3000]

[webdaddy]

If I could find a stand alone DLL to do this I would pay for it as well. I am over $1000 in VDS, commercial DLL's and the like. What another hundred or so for a useful extension.....hehe

[Skit3000]

If you can find out all different sounds people make when they speak and you know how these are writting down, you might be able to create a simple VDS program which parses typed text into chuncks, after which you can play the proper WAV files which come with them... But, this would require you to speak in the parts all with the same tone, to prevent weird sounding texts...

[jules]

It sounds very easy. I bet it's harder than that. Otherwise, there would already be standalone components for Delphi and other languages that would do that.

Even the output from the Microsoft Speech API doesn't sound that great. Something like that robot in Star Wars...

[marty]

I built a DLL for Microsoft Agents for another authoring tool and it works really well.

I wanted to convert it to VDS, but I retracted because there is something that will be released soon that will support that among other things. But unfortunatly I can't leak any info about that.

But it will be worth it

[PGWARE]

Microsoft is working on a more natural speech engine like skit was talking about. Where you take portions of speech that replicate those sounds.

For the english language the depth of O's, A's, E's there are not that many but enough to make the job a monumental one. For instance the word HEEL has a different 'e' sound then the e sound in the word BELL. In other languages around the world the constants and vowels can range much more.

As Jules points out, it's not an easy task. You would have to be very good at linguistics and determining all the different sounds of words to be able to 'piece' together sounds to replicate a real word.

It takes a lot of work and a lot of research to do something like that. You figure it out and I'll write you a check for $100,000 and buy the rights off you; I'll turn around and sell it for millions

On the other hand instead of writing an engine to piece together sounds, you very well could sit there for days recording whole words. But then your engine would be several hundred mb large due to all the wav's it has to include with entire words voiced.

[FreezingFire]

Jules - Sounds good if it's bundled with VDS 6!!!!
Even if it weren't bundled with VDS 6, I would still buy it if it was a
reasonable price.