[Dtb-talk] Braille Monitor in Daisy format

Greg Kearney gkearney at gmail.com
Thu May 7 04:07:37 UTC 2009 

That's right I work on Macs so I use Apple Alex. The issue with most  
TTS voices of any kind of quality is that they are restricted by  
licenses fees which we are not willing or able to pay. Apple has  
released their voices for free use in the production of digital  
talking books, they are of a high quality and free so that is what we  
use.

Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia

Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney at gmail.com

On 06/05/2009, at 9:58 PM, T. Joseph Carter wrote:

> Greg works on a Mac, so it'll be Alex.  I'm sure it's available for  
> the Mac.  It's just not as good as Alex, and it's not free.
>
> On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 07:23:31PM +1200, Rakesh Chand wrote:
>> Just being slightly curious! Wonder if JAWS voice from Freedom  
>> Scientific could be used? I love JAWS voice!
>>
>> Rakesh
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Kearney"  
>> <gkearney at gmail.com>
>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 4:23 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] Braille Monitor in Daisy format
>>
>>
>>> The full text full audio DAISY digital talking book has both the  
>>> text  and sometimes the pictures as well for the book as well as  
>>> recorded  audio of the book. This permits the book to by read  
>>> using either  a  playback device with TTS or one that does not  
>>> offer that option. In  addition when played on a computer playback  
>>> system the text and audio  will be synched together for display.
>>>
>>> Generally, and in this case, such books are produced with  
>>> computerised  text to speech voices, ours is from Apple, Inc. the  
>>> only high quality  voice vendor that has given a free license to  
>>> use such voices in  production.
>>>
>>> It is possible to synch human narration to text and ABWA has the   
>>> facilities to do this but the process is very slow and labour  
>>> intensive.
>>>
>>> ABWA offers services in the transformation and production of DAISY  
>>> and  other accessible media. Please feel free to contact me if you  
>>> require  more information on this.
>>>
>>> Gregory Kearney
>>> Manager - Accessible Media
>>> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
>>> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
>>> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>>>
>>> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
>>> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
>>> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
>>> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
>>> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>>>
>>> On 01/05/2009, at 10:05 AM, Burke, Dan (DSS) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greg,
>>>>
>>>> When you say  full text, full audio, are you talking about trying  
>>>> to
>>>> synch the text with the recorded mp3, or using a screen reader  
>>>> to  create
>>>> the audio?  I'm not all that clear how the full-text, full-audio  
>>>> thing
>>>> works.
>>>>
>>>> Or maybe I only ask this because I like digital text over  digital
>>>> audio, if only slightly.  But  I've always  wondered how the full  
>>>> text
>>>> full audio would be worth the effort if I just had clean text to  
>>>> build
>>>> from.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to be so out of touch.
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>> Daniel J. Burke
>>>> Assistant Director/Coordinator
>>>> Disability Services for Students
>>>> Emma B. Lommasson 154
>>>> The University of Montana
>>>> Missoula, MT 59812
>>>>
>>>> www.umt.edu/dss/
>>>>
>>>> 406.243.2243 voice/text
>>>> 406.243.4424 direct line
>>>> 406.243.5330 fax
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org 
>>>> ]
>>>> On Behalf Of Greg Kearney
>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 8:56 PM
>>>> To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books
>>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] Braille Monitor in Daisy format
>>>>
>>>> Once we get access to the digital version of the other recorded
>>>> materials we will use those rather than generating the section with
>>>> computer speech.
>>>>
>>>> I also found the text of the other NFB books online and am
>>>> investigating the process of generating those as full text full  
>>>> audio
>>>> with page number navigation.
>>>>
>>>> Greg Kearney
>>>> 535 S. Jackson St.
>>>> Casper, Wyoming 82601
>>>> 307-224-4022
>>>> gkearney at gmail.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 30/04/2009, at 5:52 PM, Peter Donahue wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello Greg and listers,
>>>>>
>>>>> If you get copies  ofBraille Monitor Issues on cassette you could
>>>>> digitize
>>>>> the masthead and prelims that way. JMO.
>>>>>
>>>>> Peter Donahue
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Greg Kearney" <gkearney at gmail.com>
>>>>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 5:43 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] Braille Monitor in Daisy format
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Because we do not have access to the recordings of the masthead  
>>>>> and
>>>>> front matter we have to record those sections with a computer-
>>>>> generated voice provided to us by Apple. It is perhaps the best
>>>>> quality synthetic voice available. It is also the only high  
>>>>> quality
>>>>> voice which is released for talking book production without paying
>>>>> licensing fees.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gregory Kearney
>>>>> Manager - Accessible Media
>>>>> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
>>>>> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
>>>>> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>>>>>
>>>>> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
>>>>> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
>>>>> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
>>>>> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
>>>>> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>>>>>
>>>>> On 30/04/2009, at 3:32 PM, Tina Hansen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I was impressed by this Monitor in DAISY format, but I think  
>>>>>> there
>>>>>> could be some improvement on the way the electronic voice handles
>>>>>> the address, phone number, web site, and the like. They sounded a
>>>>>> bit off. Once we got past the table of contents, the audio moves
>>>>>> into the recorded narration produced by National. Just a  
>>>>>> suggestion.
>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>
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