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With Regard to the NVDA IBM TTS Driver Add-On #adminnotice

Brian Vogel
 

To the membership:  It's name says precisely what it is - a driver.  Voices are not now and never have been included.  There has been much discussion of why that's the case, but that's not going to change in the foreseeable future.

If you have been using this add-on, and have voices, you acquired them yourself from somewhere in the past, and you need to keep the voices themselves archived on your machine so that if you need to give the add-on access to these, they exist somewhere that you know where they are.

If you wipe out the voices that the add-on has copied somewhere after you've told it where to find them, then you're going to have to go through that process again if you do a "nuke and pave" of NVDA and all add-ons or just that add-on in its entirety.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

       ~ Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881
Sharad Koirala
 

hello,

where can I get the voices for this driver?

regards,

On 4/1/23, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
To the membership:  It's name says precisely what it is - a driver.  Voices
are not now and never have been included.  There has been much discussion of
why that's the case, but that's not going to change in the foreseeable
future.

If you have been using this add-on, and have voices, you acquired them
yourself from somewhere in the past, and you need to keep the voices
themselves archived on your machine so that if you need to give the add-on
access to these, they exist somewhere that you know where they are.

If you wipe out the voices that the add-on has copied somewhere after you've
told it where to find them, then you're going to have to go through that
process again if you do a "nuke and pave" of NVDA and all add-ons or just
that add-on in its entirety.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit

*It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.*

~ Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881





--
Dr. Sharad Koirala
MBBS, MPH
Department of Community Medicine
Gandaki Medical College, Pokhara, Nepal
Rich Beardsley
 

Are we even allowed to discuss this synth in official NVDA groups?

On Mar 31, 2023, at 11:33 PM, Sharad Koirala <shakoirala@...> wrote:

hello,

where can I get the voices for this driver?

regards,

On 4/1/23, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
To the membership: It's name says precisely what it is - a driver. Voices
are not now and never have been included. There has been much discussion of
why that's the case, but that's not going to change in the foreseeable
future.

If you have been using this add-on, and have voices, you acquired them
yourself from somewhere in the past, and you need to keep the voices
themselves archived on your machine so that if you need to give the add-on
access to these, they exist somewhere that you know where they are.

If you wipe out the voices that the add-on has copied somewhere after you've
told it where to find them, then you're going to have to go through that
process again if you do a "nuke and pave" of NVDA and all add-ons or just
that add-on in its entirety.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit

*It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.*

~ Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881






--
Dr. Sharad Koirala
MBBS, MPH
Department of Community Medicine
Gandaki Medical College, Pokhara, Nepal
Luke Davis
 

Rich Beardsley via groups.io wrote:

Are we even allowed to discuss this synth in official NVDA groups?
Did we not just have that discussion, at length, earlier this week?

The synth can be discussed. Getting copies of it that contain legally dubious voices can not. But if you already have the voices, since they came with various paid packages over the years, the add-on can help you use them.
Brian's Mail list account
 

We have been here before many times. It really depends on where you are it seems. Some countries copyright laws are different to others. All that was said last time was that NVAccess cannot condone piracy, effectively leaving it up to the community.
The problem is that its Eloquence, and the rights now belong to somebody else other than IBM. The legality of old archives is the question.

Personally, I'd suggest that the archive, if shared is not shared via these mail lists, given that at least one of the contributors sells the package.

I have no axe to grind personally, since I do not like Eloquence when it speaks British English, but many do. Its also worth knowing that the old archive is sappi 4 as far as I am aware, and has less configurability than the currently distributed and paid for versions.
Brian

--
bglists@...
Sent via blueyonder.(Virgin media)
Please address personal E-mail to:-
briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Beardsley via groups.io" <rwbeardjr@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2023 5:21 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] With Regard to the NVDA IBM TTS Driver Add-On #adminnotice


Are we even allowed to discuss this synth in official NVDA groups?

On Mar 31, 2023, at 11:33 PM, Sharad Koirala <shakoirala@...> wrote:

hello,

where can I get the voices for this driver?

regards,

On 4/1/23, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
To the membership: It's name says precisely what it is - a driver. Voices
are not now and never have been included. There has been much discussion of
why that's the case, but that's not going to change in the foreseeable
future.

If you have been using this add-on, and have voices, you acquired them
yourself from somewhere in the past, and you need to keep the voices
themselves archived on your machine so that if you need to give the add-on
access to these, they exist somewhere that you know where they are.

If you wipe out the voices that the add-on has copied somewhere after you've
told it where to find them, then you're going to have to go through that
process again if you do a "nuke and pave" of NVDA and all add-ons or just
that add-on in its entirety.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit

*It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.*

~ Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881






--
Dr. Sharad Koirala
MBBS, MPH
Department of Community Medicine
Gandaki Medical College, Pokhara, Nepal
Nermin
 

Hi Brian,


the current IBM TTS driver allows you to customise the voices to a great extent and is not SAPI 4. It was written from scratch, using documentation that is freely available and that can be viewed on the add-on's Github page.

GitHub - davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver: This progect is to develop and mantain the NVDA IBMTTS driver. Make your contributions here!

Regards,

Nermin
Gene
 

Eloquence was never owned by IBM.  Via Voice was, and that is what is being discussed, even if people don't call it that because they don't know the name. 

It is important to avoid confusion on this point.  You can purchase legal Eloquence.  You can't purchase legal Via Voice because the owner isn't selling it.  The two synthesizers sound almost identical and I would imagine they have mostly or almost all the same code, but they are different synthesizers.

Gene

On 4/1/2023 3:58 AM, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io wrote:

We have been here before many times. It really depends on where you are it seems. Some countries copyright laws are different to others. All that was said last time was that NVAccess cannot condone piracy, effectively leaving it up to the community.
The problem is that  its Eloquence, and the rights now belong to somebody else other than IBM. The legality of old archives is the question.

Personally, I'd suggest that the archive, if shared is not shared via these mail lists, given that at least one of the contributors sells the package.

I have no axe to grind personally, since I do not like Eloquence when it speaks British English, but many do. Its also worth knowing that the old archive is sappi 4 as far as I am aware, and has less configurability than the currently distributed and paid for versions.
Brian


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