[Asterisk-Users] asterisk and TTS ( text to speech)

[chris gamble]

I have done research and reading around text to speech, and was wanting to
get an updated query of where everyone is with this. I have installed
festival 1.4 on CentOS 3.5 ( system was installed using Asterisk at Home
ISO ). I also changed the directory php application to use the festival.pl
to read the names of those who have not installed a greeting. It works
well enough, though the only voices I can get to work ( ked and kal ) are
very machine sounding. Good enough for my current purposes, but I'm having
too much fun with asterisk to leave it alone at that.

That said, I am asking what other's have exerienced with TTS. Do you use
festival and which version -- 1.4,1.95 or the 1.96 at the asterisk at home
site -- or has cepstral taken over this market?

Also, I have tried to unsuccessfully install 1.95 and the 1.96. My issue
with this is likely to be something i need to take up with the asterisk at
home group, but is the upgrade really worth it?

Any pointers or suggestions are more than welcome on learning the TTS
world for linux as well as integrating with Asterisk.

Thanks,