The Linguatec Voice Reader Studio uses the same text-to-speech audio technology as its translation software products, but with the Studio version it is possible to add different voices, insert audio samples, create audio files for podcasting and manipulate the text-to-speech engine even further.

If all users want is a podcast of a press release in MP3 or Wav format, Studio can produce the results in the time it takes to read the release. Text-to-speech quality is excellent.

The real beauty of the system is the ability to simply mark-up the text – it is as easy as using HTML – and use effects such as alternate voices within a section of text. For example, a question and answer section actually sounds like two or more people are talking, plus there is the ability to add audio clips and music files and to add pauses and add new words and acronyms that are not in the standard dictionary. Plus if users do not like the way it pronounces a word, they can create exceptions and add different pronunciations.

Distributors: Interactive Ideas