Resolved by CochranRobotics!
Hey guys.
I have asked this question in another thread, but I decided to create a new "assistance required" thread as my issue relates to Windows 8, where as the other thread was really related to Windows 7, plus I'm still having problems. I really hope someone can help with this.
The issue
I'm in the middle of a transition from moving from a Win 7 to Win 8 laptop, and I'm having a real pain in the butt issue using speech synthesis voices with the new Windows 8 machine and new ARC install.
As Richard may remember, I mentioned in the other thread that I copied the .exe file for a Cepstral voice from my Win 7 machine, reinstalled it on to the Win 8 laptop, and added the activation key. The voice worked on Narrator and other 3rd party apps such as screen readers, but it never worked on ARC so I thought that was the problem. I have since reset the laptop back to the "Out of the box" state, and started again.
My new Windows 8 Toshiba Satellite laptop comes with three pre-installed voices, but only one of them works with ARC. I have installed a fresh version of a trial Cepstral voice and a 30 day trial of an Ivona voice, and neither one works with ARC either.
I have tried each and every variation of the "Speech synthesis" settings for each voice and they have made no difference whatsoever, and keeps using the one Windows voice. The only thing that does change is the "Rate".
Have any of you guy's faced this issue with Windows 8, and/or does anyone know what can be done so I can use the voices I want to use? I really want to get this working and I don't see why I'm having these problems, as using Cepstral with ARC on Windows 7 was no problem at all. Please help. confused
Many thanks.
Steve.
A bit of an update which is mainly directed at Alan, but maybe of interest to others.
I received an email today from Cereproc, and in a nutshell they said that they don't normally offer free trial versions of their software, but If were willing to leave some feedback for their blog they would be willing to supply me with a trial package ($250+VAT if I don't leave any eek). So I just fired off a reply saying I would be happy to do so and waiting on their response. I'll let you know how I get on.
In regards to a workaround, I read in this thread about downloading Microsoft Speech SDK which apparently worked on a Win 7 system. Not knowing anything about SDK's, I was just wondering what steps (apart from downloading if course) are involved to get voices to work with ARC? I might give it a try later just to find out.
Wow, $250, they must be talking about a trial of either their ask or their commercial use license. Individual license is only $40.
I would caution against trying to install an older version of the MS voice SDK. The reason we were doing it on Win 7 was to get voices that were in XP but left out of 7. Most of those are back in win 8. Unless you are prepared to fully reinstall win 8 if something goes wrong I would avoid trying that. The downloadable versions are a couple of revisions back from the current one included in Win 8.
Alan
@Alan.
A paragraph of the email...
I though that was a LITTLE steep, but I don't mind leaving some feed back in order to try it out. In regards to the SDK, I hear you loud and clear and will stay away from playing around with that. Thanks for the heads up.
Another update although there's nothing much to report.
I managed to squeeze some life out of my Win 7 laptop Friday night/Saturday morning and made a load of Cepstral Lawrence voice samples that I loaded up on to my Win 8 system on a sound board for Saturday's charity event K-9 and myself attended.
Just to say that the event went really well and K-9 was a big hit with the kids (and adults) there. The sound files sounded great and the kids were convinced K-9 had a mind of his own. I was just informed by my friend that the whole event, for Epilepsy research, managed to raise £6250 which I'm really pleased about as it was only a moderate sized event that only lasted just over three hours. I also managed to drum up some business for EZ-Robot, with at least five people I spoke to saying they were going to place orders at the end of the month either for Revolution bots (JD was most popular) or dev kits, and a few more who really liked the website and we're going to read more when they got home. So a really good day all in all.
Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I've decided to ditch and return the AMD Toshiba laptop as I wasn't very pleased with it, so I'm replacing it with an Acer Aspire, 8 Gig, 64 bit, i5 system with Win 8.1 which will be with me before the end of the week. Then I will be testing all the voices again with ARC to see if they manage to work with the new machine. As the "bit" size doesn't seem to make a difference, I'm wondering if another make of laptop and another make of processor will make a difference. Either way I'll keep you informed of the results.
Fingers crossed, again.
Well done @Steve G ! I think Epilepsy research is a very worthy cause. I'm pleased that you were able to give your cute K-9 a voice and make it such a hit at the charity event. Rewarding for the charity, Ez-Robot and yourself! Good luck with the Acer Aspire!
Thanks Tony. I must admit that I'm on a bit of a high right now because of yesterday. The kids that were there were just great, and a lot of fun.
@Steve, that's awesome Steve... Not the same thing but my girlfriend and I rescued a cat from the brutal cold.... He was pretty banged up and had lost a lot of weight... We call him Patches and I had been feeding him for maybe 4 years now...However, living out side all these years (probably a barn cat) had now finally taken it's toll on him.... He came 2 days ago at 2am in the morning and was just sitting in the shelter I had built for him... I took one look at him and I knew he needed to be rescued... He is a tough boy, but he had had enough...
Got him to the vet... found out although no serious diseases he was invested with mites and had a nasty open wound on his right cheek... He is also in dire need of dental surgery... His two upper k-9 were broken and most is not all of the remaining teeth need to come out... The vet estimates over $2000 worth of medical... This is on top of the initial vet visit yesterday...I am not complaining I will of course pay to get him fixed up... My girlfriend has posted his story on Facebook so maybe some people will help by donating money towards his vet bill.... Facebook link... Sue Benoit or [email protected]
@Richard.
Cheers buddy. Yeah I'm really pleased with Saturday's result. A great day. Thanks for sharing Patches story. I see what you did there... K-9 (robot dog), k.9 (cat teeth) lol
.
Seriously though that's a sweet story and kudos to you and your girlfriend for taking in and looking after the little fella. Very cute. I was going to ask if you could post a Facebook link, then I see that you added one. I couldn't find anywhere where I could make a donation to help though.
Anyway back on subject. Cereproc got in touch again today with a promo code of sorts that I can use to download one of their voices for a 60 day trial. What I think I'll do though is wait for the new laptop to arrive before I use it incase I have trouble coping the voice over between laptops.