As I searched and found Russian voice for Mac OS

    As a PC user, I actively used voice solutions.

    Various readers and voice converters of the text, translating articles and books interesting to me into a “voice” and listening to them on the go from the player or from the computer before going to bed. This turned into a steady habit, which allowed me to pleasantly and usefully spend time walking and long trips. About a year ago, having bought both Macbook Air and iPhone almost at the same time, I was surprised to find this fact:
    On the one hand, the Mac has an excellent and deeply integrated voice service in the OS. Many beautiful built-in voices.
    On the other hand, there is no Russian voice for poppy!

    Russians don't give up


    I generated a lot of search queries in Russian and English. And I found some interesting information.
    Firstly, I am not the only one suffering.
    Secondly, the votes are really NO!
    Thirdly, I found information that indicated that some work on creating a Russian voice for Mac from Acapela was still underway.

    I wrote a letter in Acapela in English and Russian in the following spirit:
    “How so? The popularity of poppies in Russia is growing ... But there is no voice ?! Is such work being done?
    And if so, when, where and for what money can I get it? !!! “
    I still have not received a response to my letter.

    By the way, not so long ago Acapela finished off-line iSpeak translator applicationfor iPhone for $ 1.99 with voice synthesis of the translated text.

    But I did not despair.

    Forgotten troubles, running stopped, injected robots, not a man ...


    What to do? Maybe I missed something?
    I decided to form a search query using the Google Web Alert service. A good thing, I will report to you, although still the tools for creating a query are less developed than in the advanced search menu.
    And because of this, quite a lot of different “garbage” or duplicated information can come to you. Nevertheless, the service is convenient, I recommend it for use.
    For almost a year, from the daily reports of the service, I caught two “grains”.
    There were as many as two foreign non-profit systems that are trying to develop, among other things, their Russian voice for the poppy. For those interested I will say right away. Installing them is not a trivial matter and I did not bother with the installation. Mainly because the authors honestly admitted that although the system is working, the synthesis is still not very perfect, etc.
    And lo and behold! This morning I received another letter from the search engine, which contained this:

    “Google Web Alert for: Russian voice for Mac
    Z-Store: Does Mac speak Russian? Yes, it already says.
    But most importantly, the iVox 1.3 version finally got a Russian voice. ... To work with the Russian language, the program requires Mac OS X 10.5 and ... "

    Solution Price


    The price is considerable, they ask for either $ 99, or € 99 (it is written indistinctly), we go and compare with solutions for other languages.
    It would be nice if the following package appeared for the Russian language:
    “Infovox iVox and GhostReader bundle
    (includes Infovox iVox and GhostReader for one language of choice)
    Single user license (non-Scandinavian language)” at a price of US $ / Euro 109
    i.e. . we have a solution integrated into the system, and at the same time a program that can create audio tracks for iTunes and audio books.

    Actually having an mp3 file, I have been creating audio books for about a year using the wonderful Audiobook builder program , we read about it here .
    The program is inexpensive, i.e. about $ 10, what it costs, it fulfills fame. My audiobooks on iPhone are beautifully designed and easy to navigate.


    Testing


    As the famous Bobuk says to everyone: “Everything is fine.”
    In fact, we are promised the same, well-known to many, voice of “Alain” wrapped in a Makov’s shell.
    On PC, the voice sounds good, try it on the poppy. Of course, among American voices, there are much better voices; there are characteristic voices. There are even singing voices!
    But we are glad for this.
    The installation package contains two voices, American and Russian.
    It weighs 325 MB, given at a good speed.
    Download the demo version with Russian voice (326 MB)
    During installation, you need 301 MB of disk space, the remaining 24 MB, these are a few video lessons included in the package.
    The version is fully functional, but with a limit of 30 days, which is quite a lot for mine to test.
    Installation took about 2 minutes and required registration (not necessarily mine) and restarting the computer, which is also not surprising, given the deep integration into the OS.
    Reboot and ... And nothing!
    Any attempt to launch a voice in any application will cause the application to restart.
    I try to see "Speech" in the system settings.
    As soon as I open this section, the system settings also reboot.
    And it’s visible in the panel for some time “loading voices”.
    Probably the voice itself is the reason for this disgrace.
    For the first time I meet such a "harsh" Makovsky application.
    Well, the package also includes Uninstaller.
    If nothing helps, then I'll try to use it.

    And I wanted to finish on a positive note.

    Summary


    For a year I got used to living without a Russian or any other voice on the computer.
    For the only PC program that I need for work and a decent analogue of which I cannot find for MAC OS, I purchased Parallels (by the way, now it still has a 20% discount) and as a result I can fasten any “window” program to the poppy, and there it is full of inexpensive voice solutions.
    And finally, platform independent on-line services for translating text into voice appeared.
    There are some for the Russian language. For example, Ubot
    But let everyone make their own choices.
    Another assumption, in the future, the release of Mac Os 10.6, maybe there we can get a built-in Russian voice of good quality? Given that Russia has recently become an increasingly full member of the Mac community. What are your thoughts on this?

    PS
    I thought, is it worth it or not to write an article, meaning failure to install the program?
    I decided to write for the reason that the described problem is possible, this is my personal rake, and others will really be fine .
    From the submission, makoomazan transferred the topic from the Apple blog to the Mac OS X blog .

    Acknowledgments : no_smokin is grateful to the author of the Habra Editor. I designed the web editor in the form of a “web application” using the Fluid program and with great pleasure I used it when writing an article.

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