wow, i finally heard a leopard breathe!

[rdfreak]

I was listening to The Blind double Trouble eppisode on the apple mak, and found it very interesting! but the thing is, a few months ago, a few people did an extremely good review of the voiceover Leopard on apple Mak at computer users, and one of the things that stood out for me, was the fact that, they said it actually breathes. For the life of me, I could not hear this when they tried to demonstrate this over skype.
Later on, Dane then sent me another file so as I could attempt to hear this breathing, but i could not hear it.
but just then, when Edward (from the podcast) was setting up his mak, and figuring out the voice, it would read some long strings of text, and, it very clearly breathed! I was so excited, but kinda freaked out at the same time! Even though it kinda sounds natural, well .. it's just bizarre; having a speech synth doing that! Lol
maybe i will get an apple one of these days! but i am kinda building my account up again, after it took a bit of a bashing with my holiday and my m-power.
Til next time, RdFreak

Comments

mac voiceover etc

[khoath.livejournal.com]

Just a couple of things. The default voice on leopard is called Alex. Alex is the voice that breathes. The breathing voice is slower than fred, but is natural sounding. Pity the machine runs like a dog when you use it. Don't rush out and buy a Mac yet; saphari does not support flash and will not for example work on facebook. Not that that is a bad thing if you ask me but that's another rant intirely.

Re: mac voiceover etc

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

I don't think I will be rushing out to by iit at this stage, but not having to worry about jaws upgrades is definitely appealing.

Re: mac voiceover etc

[khoath.livejournal.com]

Actually you still have to pay for upgrades to the operating system which occur every 2 years or so, and that will set you back $160 to $200 so you don't escape the SMA trap altogether with a Mac you just pay less.

Re: mac voiceover etc

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

ah well, hopefully a future update will support flash and all that, as jaws now does! :)

Re: mac voiceover etc

[khoath.livejournal.com]

Adobe have stated publically that they intend to provide no support for flash on the Mac, as there is insufficient demand. this may change in time, I know Greg Kerney is working on this however there are still far more pcs than Macs and apple has no intentions of adding 3rd party accessability at this time. I'd say we're a year or two from having flash support. There is currently no access to firefox on the Mac so for the moment we are stuck with saphari.

Re: mac voiceover etc

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

well that is definitely such a shame. it seems more and more blindies are turning to Maks, *sigh*

[braillereader.livejournal.com]

Hi, when I first heard the Mac breathe I thought it was cool but freaky also. Now that I use a Mac on a regular basis, I'm used to it now so don't always pay attention to the fact that it takes a breath. Not sure if all the voices do this, but Allex does which is the one I use. I absolutely love Voiceover and the Mac just because I now don't have to worry about jfw upgrades and stuff.

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

well yeh, that's the main attraction i think. it's totally ridiculous, expecting us to upgrade jaws all the time for the latest benefits.

[braillereader.livejournal.com]

I agree. The other huge selling point for me anyway is a Mac is accessible rright out of the box as soon as you turn it on. That's the main reason I got it, no more having to wait to install screen readers, just turn it on and you are good to go. Not to mention that I can walk to any Mac even ones in an apple store and be able to use them.

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

yeh well that's it! next time I'm in such a store, I'll be trying one out too! :)