Any better voices for Voice Over?

Does anyone know if there are any other voices for the Voice Over utility? Does Apple offer any? How about free ones?

It's an interesting question, Your Majesty!
Apple offers no other voices at the moment, though there are some queued up for Leopard when it comes out in the spring.
I haven't found any free voices either, though there are some Unix ones that would need to be compiled and installed—not a process for the faint-hearted.
Voices from Cepstral are available in a number of languages, and are comparable in quality to the Apple voices. They cost $29.99 apiece, and integrate quite well with VoiceOver, although there are occasional stability problems.
Other voices are available from Acapela as part of their Infovox iVox package. They work best when integrated with the VisioVoice package from AssistiveWare. This costs $249, but there is a special deal at $185 until 31st December 2006. The voices alone are available through AssistiveWare at $199 for US English, with again a special offer price until 31st December of $149. This gives you 5 high-quality (HQ) voices, which are a great deal better than any of the Apple or Cepstral offerings, and 2 high-definition (HD) voices, that sound less lifelike but can cope with special characters, and distinguish between upper- and lower-case letters.
In particular, the British English voices (slightly more expensive, but can be added separately) are superb quality—the best text-to-speech on any platform anywhere. I can also confirm the quality of the French voices, but am not qualified to judge the others!
HTH
Archie
PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz, PowerBook G4 12" 1.5 GHz, G4 Sawtooth 400 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Different Voices for Voice Over For different countries.

Hi I was reading on Wikipedia the other day and found out that in Voice Over you can add voices for other countries instead of just having United States Voices. But where do i find them.
And if i got like a Latin America Spanish one if i typed something in Spanish would it speak it properly.

There are two main sources for voices in other languages that are compatible with VoiceOver:
Infovox iVox from AssistiveWare and
Cepstral voices.
Both allow you to listen to samples and to download and try the voices for yourself. Infovox iVox offer both Latin American and Castilian Spanish, while Cepstral offers only Latin American.
HTH
Archie

Is there any better way for updating table other than this?

Hi all, I need to update a row in the table that require me to search for it first (the table will have more than hundred thousands of row). Now, I am using a LOV that will return the primary key of the row and put that primary key to DEFAULT_WHERE property in the block and execute query command to fetch the row that need updating. This works fine except that it require 2-query-trip per update (the lov and the execute_query). Is there any better way to doing this? This update is the main objective for my application and I need to use the most effective way to do it since we need to update many records per hour.

Thanks Rama, I will try your method. Others, how to query row instead of primary key? I thought that querying primary key is faster due to the index?
BTW, what people do if you need to update a table using Form? I have been using the LOV then execute query since I first developing form. But I am building a bigger database recently that I start worrying about multiple query trip to dbms.
FYI my table will have up to million rows on it. Each row will be very active (updated) within 1-2 weeks after it creation. After that it will exist for records purposes only (select only). The active rows are probably less than 1% of all the rows.

IMAQ Resample performance. Any better choice for 50% downsample? (average 2x2 - 1 pixel)

My video source is a 4 Mpixel (2k x 2k resolution) USB3 camera. This is displaying a live image OK in Labview at 45 fps using only 20% CPU. So far, so good.
I added a "IMAQ Resample" block to downsize this to 1024 x 1024 image. That works with almost no additional processing time if I select "Zero Order" interpolation (eg. plain subsample to value of nearest pixel). However, I want to average each 2x2 block (4 pixels) in the input image into 1 output pixel. I *think* that is the effect of selecting Bi-Linear interpolation. Doing that works, but takes about 45% of CPU. I want to do some other processing but am worried I will quickly run out of CPU time and start dropping frames.
Is there any better way to do this simple 50% downsize (2x2 average), that would take less CPU overhead, or is this the best way?

Hi jbeale1,
In NI-MAX (Measurement & Automation Explorer) select your camera. Under the 'Acquistion Attributes' tab do you see an option to change the Video Mode of your camera to a different resolution? If your camera supports it, it would be more efficient to change the resolution there.
If not , here is a little more info regarding the IMAQ Resample VI:
http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370281P-01/imaqvision/imaq_resample/
You are correct, the Bi-Linear option uses a more intensive interpolation technique which is why it is more taxing on your CPU. I hope this is helpful.
Robert S.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

Any better solution for this ?

public static void main (String args [])
     for (int row = 1; row <= 5; row++)
          for (int col1 = 4; col1 >= row; col1--)
               System.out.print(" ");
          for (int col2 = row*2; col2 > 1; col2--)
               System.out.print("*");
          System.out.println();
     for (int row = 1; row <= 4; row++)
          for (int col1 = 1; col1 <= row; col1++)
               System.out.print(" ");
          for (int col2 = 4; col2 >= row; col2--)
               System.out.print("*");
          for (int col3 = row; col3 < 4; col3++)
               System.out.print("*");
          System.out.println();
}I'm trying to make this:
I think that my solution is too long. any shorter solution?
TQ

It IS hardwired to produce that figure and only that figure.
What if they asked you to redo it with fewer or more rows of stars?
You did a "bad" thing: you hardwired your loop sizes. Something like "i <= 4" is called a "magic number", because someone reading your code would have no idea where the 4 came from.
You also have 4 appear in several places. That violates the Don't Repeat Yourself rule. If you have to change it, and forget one of the spots, your code is wrong.
You can help both situations by defining a well-named constant and using that for the loop upper limit:
public class DiamondsAreAGirlsBestFriend
   public static final int DIAMOND_SIZE = 4;
   public static void main(String [] args)
      for (int row = 0; row <= DIAMOND_SIZE; ++row)
      // and so on
}Also, better to put this into a method that would take in a diamond size value and return a String. Then it's general.
None of this is very important for this trivial problem, but they might be worth remembering when you start writing more complex programs.
%

Any better option for email than iCloud?

I've endured iCloud for long enough. Apple keeps promising to get it working, rebranding MobileMe as iCloud, but still delivering a badly flawed product.
I've never had such an unreliable email service in all the years I've used the internet, which goes back to the days of bulletin boards before the internet was available.
I've had large numbers of emails deleted to oblivion, emails disappear then reappear, and yesterday 400+ emails retagged as "unread".
Now people are ringing me to say emails sent to me are bouncing back. Even the unsolicited discounts and extensions of service offered by Apple don't make up for such an unacceptably shoddy service that is just unreliable.
Does anyone with similar experiences have suggestions for a better alternative email system?

Paid systems offer higher reliability and retention than free. Your choice.

Hello is there any better view for this code?

thanks
about_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, aboutclick);
function aboutclick(event:MouseEvent) {
gotoAndPlay("page2");
gallery_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, gallery_click);
function gallery_click(event:MouseEvent) {
gotoAndPlay("page3");
video_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, video_click);
function video_click(event:MouseEvent) {
gotoAndPlay("page4");
or_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,drag);
or_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,drop);
function drag(event:MouseEvent):void{
    or_mc.startDrag();
function drop(event:MouseEvent):void{
    or_mc.stopDrag();
all.pah.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,drag1);
all.pah.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,drop1);
function drag1(event:MouseEvent):void{
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function drop1(event:MouseEvent):void{
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What do you mean? Except for what appears to be an excess curly brace at the end, and an inconsistent use of ":void" in the function declarations and indentations too, it looks okay functionally.

Any alternative communication for dblink a 9iR2 and a 10gR2 on same unix?

I want to access tables of a 9iR2 with a 10gR2 sql function(ora_hash). is there any better alternative for dblink access in performance perspective?
or is there any tricks to create the dblink for two instances on the same unix?
thank you.

At what point are you going to to do the validation?after complete sync of databases we were given 2 hours of downtime for validation, parallel to some configuration on application servers and some user acceptance tests Justin.
If the hash doesn't match, what are you going to do? You can't go back to the old system without losing transactions made on the new system. And you can't easily figure out which rows don't match (and why) from a single hash value.we will be doing MINUS ALL over dblink to see the details of the difference, hashing is like a boolean flag, so we will be only interested for the ones that have a false flag with hashing.
what is the back-out plan? we are not letting go the platform A databases until everything is validated successfully. they will be opened restricted and read-only. another important point is when there is a need of going back after some hours or days on the platform B, for this purposes we will be again capturing the changes on the target databases in order to apply them back to the source databases in any unexpected case may occur after some time we opened the customer channels.
Do you really need a hash that combines every row? Could you not pick a reasonable and representative sample of rows to verify that the changes came across (i.e. by forcing updates to Dummy Customer A-Z records at various "interesting" points during the transition and verifying that the changes come over)?ora_hash is fast, it runs on SQL engine, we can generate count and hash values within an hour for over 10 TB of data with our hardware for now. So we didn't need sampling yet.
Obviously, you can do the validation in the lower environments because you don't have to run 24x7 there. Is that level of validation not sufficient? If something works in dev, test, and staging, do you really need to do the full validation in production?as always dev. and test environments are not %100 representative for a production, we are doing tests but I am nearly sure that we will see new things when we go for production :)

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Provide the name of the program you are using so a Moderator may move this message to the correct program forum
This Cloud forum is not about help with program problems... a program would be Photoshop or Lighroom or Muse or ???

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Go here:
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Quote
I know this is the wrong place to ask but is there any beta bioses for the Z77-GD55?
Any reason you need a Beta ? Best to open a ticket with MSI technical and ask them if there are any new BIOS versions that could solve your problem.
Would a mod please move this and the previous post to a new thread "Z77A-GD55 BETA BIOS".

HT203077 Is there any way to get other voices for the voice over? Alex is dull.

Is there any way to get other American English voices for the voice over--besides Alex?

Settings > General > Siri > Voice Gender

Why A is better than B/G for Voice over WLAN

Hello all,
Now this post has some questions and statements in that you guys know all about and would like your valued advise and corrections/confirmations on the points.
Why A is better than B/G for voice:
B/G is congested, ie BT, Microwaves. Lots of other WLANs etc etc etc - FACT!
More non-overlapping channels - FACT!
The scatter and reflection on A is better than B/G. The idea being, the higher the frequency, the better the scatter. Would this be correct?
Higher frequencies produce better penetration results through walls, I have read. Or is it worse. Cisco say worse in the document "2.4 GHz waveform of 802.11b and 802.11g can pass through many walls. The 5 GHz waveform of 802.11a has approximately half the tendency for a given power to transmit suitable amounts of energy through walls because of its higher frequency" Ref: enterprise mobility guide. I am a little confused on this ?
A travels thru water and other moisture better than B/G, thus damp walls, wet walls, open areas (lets say between two buildings) would handle A better than B/G?
The Fresnel Zone (clearance required of an obstacle without degrading signal) is better on the A band due to a small wavelength size. Would this be a major factor for an RF design engineer? Any more technical "dummies guide" to this subject would be good?
OFDM handles signalling shortcomings like multipath fade better that previous modulations techniques (I know that G 11Mbps and above uses this also). Anyone have an English explanation to why this is? Also, please look at the graphic attached that shows the enterprise mobility guide in chaper 3, the table. What is the difference between the modulation and transmission type as many people refer to DSSS and OFDM as "modulation" I am a little confuse by this table.
Can anyone give me any more reasons and facts, and clarify any of the points above so when someone comes to me and says, "ahh, just roll out voice on B/G" I can say well this is why not?
Many thx indeed,
Ken

You have some good questions. The main reason why people are moving voice to 802.11a is the fact that there is more congestion in the 2.4GhZ spectrum. For example in a downtown area building. There are so many wifi devices out in the 2.4Ghz along with all the other interference that you get on that spectrum. 802.11a, the 5Ghz is a shorter wavelength, so the more it is susceptible to attenuation. The lower the frequency the better the signal can travel through various materials. Look at cell phones.... they are in the 800mhz or lower spectrum and they have greater distances than higher frequencies. Another reason is that if you have guest access, you have to look at devices you need supported. There might be legacy 802.11b clients or newer clients that only support 802.11b or 802.11g. So now the 5Ghz is open which give you more bandwidth for voice.
Water is an RF killer no matter if you use 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz.

External recording indication for voice over recording

hi,
i'm wondering if there is any way to get recording indication for voice over recording out of final cut pro or soundtrack pro. i need to get the 'on air' signalization to the speaker room which is not the same as editing room.
i'm looking for something like
http://www.punchlight.com/?q=node/10
which i'm used to use with protools. does anybody have any idea?
thanks for help

How about a switch you throw to turn on a recording light in the booth? I think less tech here is likely better.
Jerry

Sountrack or Logic/Logic Express for voice over recording?

Hello,
I am wondering which software is best for voice over work? Sountrack or Logic/Logic Express?
Any input would be great. I would add the standard effects/filters to certain voice overs and add sound effects and music.
I have a midi/guitar and garage band is enough for me. I would not want to use Garageband as my software of choice for voice over work. I want markers and other more advanced tools?
Thanks,
Erik

Thanks for the answer.
I was looking at the Dialogue Tools in Sountrack and they appear to be perfect.
My main questrion is can record into Sountrack with a mic right? I have an m-audio saphire with a m-audio preamp.
I saw a demo of Soundtrack at NAB and all the effects looked perfect for voice over. I think Logic Studio is overkill but Sountrack and Logic Express( for my guitar) might be a perfect 1-2 punch. I will get Sountrack with The Final Cut Studio as I need video tools as well.
Thanks,
Erik

Any better voices for Voice Over?

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