Brightspeech voices available, kind of ...

[Gemini]

Welcome home Heather!!! Yes it does work!!!

Thanks for the GREAT heads up on this Electron!

 

[upstatemike]

I also now have Heather as my default computer voice and she works from the Speach Bar in Word even after I shut down the thingy in the system tray.

 

[Skibum]

Were you able to install the program on more than 1 machine?

 

[upstatemike]

I will probably try that over the weekend. I'm playing with WeatherAloud right now. Looks like an inexpensive way to speak weather forecasts without a full blown HA software application like HS or ECS.

 

[Skibum]

Well... I've bucked up...

Waiting for the download now.

 

[electron]

If they would add support for these voices to the NewsAloud program ($14.95), it would make this a better deal for sure.

 

[Skibum]

Heather is BACK, and sweeter than ever!

 

[electron]

I just got a $50 GC to Best Buy, if NextUp would only accept those ...

 

[TCassio]

Gee, I already own Textaloud (bought it with AT&T voices), I wonder if I can just purchase "Heather" for $25.

 

[electron]

Good question, let us know if you find out.

 

[Skibum]

FYI


I downloaded and installed Heather as well as the Nextup software. Then I selected Heather as my voice in the speaker app. It worked fine. I never had to load the Next-Up application.
I did get a popup window asking to unblock, I said later... not sure what that was for.

Hopefully the voice will be there for use after the next reboot without Next up running as well.

 

[electron]

Question is, will it work without NextUp installed?

 

[Gemini]

Yes it will. Set it up last night as my default voice, and now it is just that. I did not run or load Text Aloud (cute program) on this boot and was able to read text from a MS "Works" document.

Update,
I just moved Heather to my HS machine without installing TA and it works as a system default. It comes up listed as a "HQ TTS English" engine. I did (like someone else) get a firewall request to connect to Acapela, I declined the connect this time and everything appears to be fine.

 

[Rupp]

So again. Has anyone loaded just the voice and not loaded text aloud?

 

[electron]

I am downloading Heather right now, this better work, since I didn't buy the TextAloud program, and it would have been a $5 discount if I did buy it at the same time.