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TextAloud Review
Program: TextAloud Mp3
Developer: NextUp.com (http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/)
Price: $19.95 from Applian
By: Yerlees Zavaleta
Corporate Programmer
Installing the program:
The installation is quite simple and straight forward. There is one thing you'll have to keep on the look out, when using the Windows 2000; it will prompt you to replace some files and you have to select "no to all" in order to proceed with the installation or the program won't work.
Using the Program:
Using the program is quite simple! After the installation the help page comes up with very short briefings on the functions of the product. The program will nicely reside on your system tray for quick access.
In order to load the text, you have the option of either copying and pasting (using the clipboard) or simply opening a text file and performing the reading from there. You can also preview the reading before recording it... when I say preview, I mean that you can listen to the full text before choosing to save it.
There are two options of text to voice; you can save the text to Wav or MP3 format. Saving to wav files will take much more storage space than the MP3 format. The main advantage of saving it to wav is that you will be able to burn it on a CD and listen it in your car, stereo or discman while the MP3 format will conveniently fit on your PocketPC, MP3 player or simply on your computer.
There are three options of voices that come bundled with TextAloud though you'll be able to download up to 10 additional voices and 7 foreign languages! This turned out to be a big plus! The additional languages are clear and well rendered.
You'll have the option of customizing each voice; you can either reduce or increase speed and pitch. This is a very important option in order to match TextAloud to your computer system... different speakers will respond differently to a different picth. Reducing the speed also helps improve the comprehension. I found myself using "RobotFour" and though the voice isn't too human, it will give your computer a definite high tech side!!!
I also liked the recording speed options; you can select from 1x up to 50x for the writing speed and there is no quality lost (well nothing you can hear). You'll also be able to choose the quality of the recording: from 16k, 16KHz mono, up to 128K, 44Khz stereo.
Although I don't think this program was written for Pocket PC, just the fact that Pocket PCs will play MP3 right out of the box is a good addition to the list of apps. Nothing will be easier in simply translating your emails into MP3 and loading them on your PPC before going to work.... What about listenning to your emails while cooking?!
One thing that I would like to see added to TextAloud is a sort of Outlook Pluggin that will let you automatically read emails at a click of a button! Wouldn't it be nice?
Pros:
- Fast translation from text to MP3 or WAV.
- Easy to follow instructions.
- Text to MP3 or WAV speed is a great option.
Cons:
- Manually copy the converted text to your Pocket PC.
- The tool box automatically comes up every time you copy any text to the clipboard (but you can disable the option).
Finally, I want to thank Rick Ellis and Bill Dettering, for sending me the application for review! Keep up with the great work!!!
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