Anyone know of an affordable Text to Speech program w/medical terms for study?

[Spinietzschon]

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Hey I'm posting this in Allopathic but also in Pre-medical (just because there are more people logged in and I want as many people to see this as I can).

I'm in med school currently and attempting to select a Text To Speech program which would allow me to listen to material which I've already gone over in settings where I can't be reading. I don't think I could follow a narrative from a computer or IPOD as a primary learning source but re-going over it could help me with details. While I have to clean my apartment or jogging or maybe while getting ready to sleep.

So I found http://www.naturalreaders.com/index.php and some of the voices http://www.naturalreaders.com/sample.php seem pretty good actually - not overly mechanical - way better than the synthetic voices in TTS editors I'm used to hearing.

But they can't do medical terms. Gallbladder ended up with like 10 syllables and if I didn't have the text in front of me a lot of the terms might actually be impossible to understand. At any rate it would distract me too much to be practical.

Other software has engines with medical dictionaries built into the pronunciation but I'm seeing professional software for more than 1,000 US dollars. I need something personal I can use for a lot less. I don't think the Dragon software had a cheap one they advertised for use with medical terms.

Anybody know of an alternative they would suggest?

Ease of Use > Vocab/Pronunciation > Customer Service > Price (subjective; I can't be throwing $500 for something that would only be helpful, not essential)

Thank you very much!

ONE MORE RE-CLARIFICATION: TEXT TO SPEECH. I want to listen to it. I am NOT CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR SPEECH TO TEXT! Thanks!

 

[deleted303591]

I worked in IT in the past, as a computer repair technician. I also have a print disability and I use Bookshare with a proprietary software on the iPad to read my books aloud. I also use Kurzweil 3000 on my Mac/PC, from time to time. The software I use highlights the word and sentence (in different colors) as being spoken aloud, allowing me to follow the material, regardless of the quality of the voice. Although on the iPad, the voice is very clear. It is Acapella Heather.

By far, the iPad is the best way to read text aloud. I have a decent computer, with an Intel i7 processor, but the TTS engines all are resource hogs.

It is kind of difficult to find an inexpensive TTS engine in combination with a software that will use the TTS engine on a PC.

None of the TTS engines are reliable on any platform, for properly pronouncing medical terminology. They are not programmed to pronounce specific words in a specific way. They all use algorithms to find the "best way" to pronounce particular words.

If using a PC (Windows operating machine)
TTS engines can be resource hogs on Windows. If I were you, I would probably get the Cepstral voices, for $29.99 a piece. I would then use Adobe Acrobat Professional to read the text aloud. If the document is not in PDF form, just print it to PDF using the given PDF printer.

If using an iPad/iPhone:
Voice Dream Reader Reads all sorts of documents, and syncs with Dropbox.

The iPad/iPhone method is the much cheaper, reliable, and portable method.

 

[didiee]

I've looked into a lot of different products recently. I must say the one I like the most is Ivona text reader. Salli may have the best voice.

Some programs will not read abbreviations. for example electronic health record (EHR), some will read it as "ERR" i think can be confusing for someone who is just listening to it.
Some of the nuances in speech can also get lost in some other products. Example again, electronic health records, some will read "records" as a verb.
Ivona passed those two tests without much trouble.
I havent put it through "scientific" papers.
good luck, keep us updated if you find something better.