Where can I get voices for .net applications using System.Speech in Windows 7? [closed]

Question

I'm so confused between the text to speech technologies in Windows. I have a slightly peculiar requirement: I need to output speech from a .net program running in Win 7 using System.Speech assembly. I want a good, robotic sounding voice that doesn't have as strong a US accent as Microsoft Anna.

Which 3rd party voices will work with the .net api? Does anyone know of a good British (but not too British) voice, preferably free or cheap?

Briarroot

Drive-by downvoters care to comment? – Anitaanitra

Yeah, I see no reason to down-vote this question unless they wanted to criticize it for being non-development related? – Rahel

Wow, just wow. Off-topic? Man I'm getting sick of the overly elite nature of SO. – Anitaanitra

Yes. I don't really see how this doesn't meet the FAQ requirements, though I could have 'coded' it up I suppose. – Briarroot

I'm coding using the System.Speech.SpeechSynthesizer class and I found this question entirely relevant to the topic of programming. +1 – Autochthon

Answer 1

I believe the current TTS engine uses SAPI5 voices. I have not played with TTS beyond SAPI4, but some searching for "SAPI5 voices" produced relevant links. Perhaps this can take you further and actually find the voice you're looking for?

1. http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/
2. http://www.cepstral.com/demos/ - some commercial voices

Hope this helps!

Rahel