[Sussex] Text to mp3/ogg converter

[Neil Hart]

> > > Hi all
> > >
> > > I'm currently looking for an open source converter to transform
> > > plain text files into spoken words.  Google hasn't helped me up
> > > until now.
> > >
> > > Does anyone here have any experience or recommendations on such a
> > > tool?
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > Neil
> >
> >
> > There are a few, but they are not quite up to non-FOSS standards in my
> > opinion.
> >
> > Worth trying, "festival" -
> > http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
> >
> > It's in most repo's.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> > Dave Walker
>
> Kde do a couple of nice front ends ksayit and kmouth.
>
> Regards
>
> Sean O'Reilly
>

Hi guys

I'm quite happy playing on the command line at the moment, but will
look at the various front-ends later.

I've tried "festival" - and it was sort of OK.

I didn't realise, but I'd already got "espeak" installed, which I
found a bit better.

I guess what I'm really after, is a text to (close to) natural speech
converter, similar to BT's SMS to voice service.  Big fan that I am of
Stephen Hawking, listening to long files of synthesized voices might
be a bit hard on the ears.

Any other suggestions will be gratefully received, even if they're not
open source.

Cheers

Neil