Voices & File Options
Voice Options
This section provides a listing of all available voices on your system, as well as control over which are used and some settings for each voice.
At the top of this TAB, you'll notice an option for SAPI Version. By default, this should be left to read Use Both, as this gives you the most available voices.
The list area in the center of this TAB lists voice companies whose voices you have on your computer. Some of these voices may have been placed on your computer when you first installed windows, or may have been placed by other programs you install. Click the + sigh to the left of a company name to reveal the individual voices available.
Click on an individual voice, and you will have several options for actions you can take:
- Using the sliders at the bottom of the window, you can adjust the Speed and Volume of the voice. With some voices you can also adjust the pitch of the voice.
- You can click the Test button t hear a sample of the voice at the current settings.
- You can click the Reset Defaults button to reset the pitch, speed, and volume settings to their factory installed defaults.
- You may set a voice as your Default voice. This means that based on settings in the Voice Selection TAB, this may be the only voice GroupsAloud will use. You should set your favorite voice as your favorite.
- You may also enable/disable voices. Enabling a voice makes it available to be used by some voice selection options. Disabling a voice will cause GroupsAloud to ignore the voice.
Voice Selection
By clicking the Voice Selection TAB at the top of the Voice Options Dialog, you can get to the Voice Selection settings. this controls which voices will actually be speaking the USENET posts you download. This simple window gives you 3 options for GroupsAloud's automatic selection of voices:
- Always Use Default Voice - With this selected, every USENET post will be spoken by the voice you have marked as the Default Voice on the Voice Options TAB.
- Round Robin - With this setting, GroupsAloud will change the voice used with each post, going in complete cycles through all available enabled voices. For example, if you have enabled Mary, Mike, and Sam, then the first post would be spoken by Mary, the next by Mike, the next by Sam, then it starts over the cycle with Mary again.
- Choose Random Voice - With this setting, for each post, GroupsAloud will randomly select one of your enabled voices.
Audio File Options
Setting Audio File Options
- From the menu, select Options -> Voices and File Options
- Select the File Options panel.
The following fields are available on the File Options panel
| Field Name |
Description |
| Audio File Format |
Select from WAV or MP3. |
| Write to File Speed |
This setting applies only for SAPI4 voices, and determines how much processor is dedicated to WAV file conversion. Higher values result in faster conversion. See Note below about setting this value too high. |
| Quality |
This setting is normally used to determine the quality of MP3 files generated by GroupsAloud. |
| Output File Directory |
The directory where audio files are written. |
| Multiple File Options |
Specifies how file(s) are created when writing audio files for multiple messages.
Create one audio file per message - Specifies that one wav / mp3 file will be created for each message.
Create one audio file per threadSpecifies that messages in the same thread will be written to a single audio file. A single audio file for each thread is generated. |
Choosing a Bit / Sample Rate
You will notice that different combinations of Bit Rate and Sample Rate effect the quality of your MP3 files. A general rule is to choose a Bit Rate or Sample Rate that gives you the best quality, but try to keep the Bit Rate as small as possible. Smaller Bit Rates equate to smaller audio files and faster encoding time.
When choosing a Sample Rate, it is important to remember that high quality digital speech can be produced at much smaller sample rates than digital music.
If you're planning to copy MP3 files to a hand-held device (like an MP3 Player), you may also need to check if your device requires a particular audio format. Some players, designed for digital music, only support sample rates in the 44kHz range, and may also require Stereo instead of Mono audio files.
Encoding in Stereo will significantly increase your audio file sizes and encoding times. Since the originating TTS output is truly Mono, it is best to use stereo encoding only if required by the portable device you're using.
The following table provides recommended settings for various voices.
| Voice Engine |
Recommended Bit / Sample Rate |
| Microsoft Voices |
32kpbs, 22.05kHz, Mono |
| Lernout & Hauspie |
16kpbs, 11.02kHz, Mono |
| 8kHz AT&T Natural Voices, 8kHz NeoSpeech |
16kpbs, 16kHz, Mono |
| 16kHz AT&T Natural Voices |
24kpbs, 16kHz, Mono |
| Cepstral Voices, 16kHz NeoSpeech Voices |
24kpbs, 16kHz, Mono |
Tips
Most good CD burning software can burn audio CDs from WAV and MP3 files generated by GroupsAloud. If you do not have audio burning software, check out MP3 CD Burner at http://www.nextup.com/partners.html
If you have Windows XP, Windows Media Player has built in burning. You just go to the copy to CD or Device item on the left side of windows media player, Drag in the GroupsAloud created files, then click the record button in Windows Media Player.
Notes
On some machines, setting the value for Write To File Speed too high may cause WAV file conversion to interfere with other applications on the machine, and may also cause corrupt WAV files to be generated. We recommend starting with a value of 10x, and increasing the value gradually.
The SAPI version mentioned on this page can be set on the Voice Options panel.
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