KDE: Jovie text 2 speech ... voice alternatives? [Solved]

[linuxfluesterer]

Halloy guys.
I use KDE 4.9.5. I have installed Jovie, the frontend? for TTS.
So, I get spoken, what time it is, every hour.
But this voice is mechanical like a robot. I've tried different choices. No big differences.

So, is it possible to install a speech voice like IPhone Siri or Android (S3) TTS with a friendly human voice?

Any idea?

Thank you in advance.

-Linuxfluesterer (I love KDE ...)

[Fitzcarraldo]

Well, there's espeak or festival. Either application has many voices and you can also create your own. I use KAlarm with espeak for my talkiing clock (see Setting up a talking clock easily in Linux) and I use a customised female voice file (/usr/share/espeak-data/voices/!v/f6):

Code: Select all

language variant
name female6
gender female

pitch 188 228
roughness 0

formant 0 105 80 150
formant 1 110 80 160
formant 2 110 70 150
formant 3 110 70 150
formant 4 115 80 200
formant 5 115 80 100
formant 6 110 70 150
formant 7 110 70 100
formant 8 110 70 150

stressAdd 0 0 -10 -10 0 0 10 40
breath 0 2 3 3 3 3 0 5
voicing 70
breathw 150 150 200 200 400 400
consonants 150 150

[linuxfluesterer]

Thank you, Fitzcarraldo.
The thing is, after creating an f6 file, adopted to German languge, I don't know how to tell KAlarm, to read the time and use the new f6 settings profile.
I tried in KAlarm and I tried in Analog Clock of KDE plasmoids also.
In both I can't open any path to /usr/share/espeak-data/voices.
Have a hint for me, maybe?

Thank you, again,

-Linuxfluesterer (I love KDE ...)

[Fitzcarraldo]

Configure KAlarm (Alarm tab, Action section) to have an hourly recurring alarm that executes the command listed in the blog post I referenced earlier.

[linuxfluesterer]

Hallo Fitzcarraldo....
After your last recommendation, I've read your blog again.
Then I tried and understood, how to activate the command by KAlarm.
There was not really a change in the espeak voice, so, I have changed the parameters in the Analog clock itself,
played with the pitch and the speed. It sound a little better, but not really I'd like it.
And, I want a German voice talking, pls consider...
Anyway I played more with KAlarm, and one very good feature is, that I can wake up my laptop (e.g. in night time, when I'm sleeping) to start to record a movie in kaffeine.
I made first trials, that work fine, now I onlyneed to schedule recording a movie in Kaffeine itself (is build-in).
Shutdown will be done by invoking:

Code: Select all

kdesu kcmshell4 kcm_cron

where I can initiate a shutdown as root, at a given time after finished recording.
That's great.
I have to say thank you again, and pls, sorry for my late reply.
I will close this speech topic als [Solved] then.

-Linuxfluesterer (I love KDE ...)