XPost: alt.comp.freeware, alt.comp.os.windows-10   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   R.Wieser wrote:   
   > Mayayana,   
   >   
   >>  If you care, the Michael and Mary voices were   
   >> made available by someone as an XP installable.   
   >   
   > Do you perhaps have some more info ?   
   >   
   > A number of years ago I tried to add a more understandable voice to my   
   > XPsp3, but hit a brick wall when the voice-files I downloaded never wanted   
   > to work - and often didn't even contain files ending in either .sdf or .spd   
   > (as the "sam" voice-files do).   
   >   
   > Most of the time I can't understand what the "sam" voice says, even though   
   > I've entered the text myself.  Heck, just emitting a few beeps is currently   
   > often more helpfull. :-(   
   >   
   > Regards,   
   > Rudy Wieser   
      
   I blame the lousy voices on Windows, on the "Bubbles" voice   
   on MacOS :-) That set the precedent for crap.   
      
   It seems OS companies are not interested in particularly   
   moving quickly in that area, whereas commercial synthesis   
   companies sell web based TTS and dictation for muí dinero.   
   When a scam phone call claiming to be the CRA arrives   
   on my phone, the synthesized voice on there sounds better   
   than an OS TTS.   
      
   I thought ATT made some voice files available, but I was never   
   able to track down a working example.   
      
   https://superuser.com/questions/1020849/get-more-microsoft-text-   
   o-speech-voices   
      
       Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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