Text to speech ... and vice versa

[Langstracht]

It looks like there was some buzz about Festival a couple of years ago. And little or nothing since.

I just gave it a try. And it "works" albeit not very well.

Is there any other software that someone can recommend that does "work"?

I'd also like to get a speech-to-text programme. Have looked and found nothing.

Again can someone recommend a programme?

TIA

[FakeOutdoorsman]

text-to-speech
You can use the flite filter in ffmpeg. You'll have to compile it:

sudo apt-get install build-essential flite1-dev
wget http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
tar xjvf ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
cd ffmpeg
./configure --enable-libflite --enable-gpl
make -j4

Now run your new ffmpeg binary (notice the ./ before the ffmpeg):

cd ~/ffmpeg
./ffmpeg -f lavfi -i flite=textfile=speech.txt output.wav

or enter the text in your command instead of using speech.txt:

cd ~/ffmpeg
./ffmpeg -f lavfi -i flite=text='Corn? When did I eat corn?' output.wav

I haven't actually tested these commands so take a look at the docs too.

Also see:

• FFmpeg flite filter documentation
• How To Compile FFmpeg and x264 on Ubuntu

[Langstracht]

I'll give that/them a try. Thanks for the info.