There are a lot of different text to speech (TTS) programs out there. Some of them you have to pay for, while others come free like Dspeech. This is a TTS program that also has automatic speech recognition integrated in. To cap it all off, Dspeech is a very light program which does not install itself to your computer (doesn’t write anything to your registry).

WHAT IS IT AND WHAT DOES IT DO

Main Functionality

As with other TTS programs, Dspeech reads written text aloud. Although the program is lightweight, it is quickly able to perform this task. It is also able to choose which sentences are to be pronounced based on vocal answers provided by the user.

Pros

• No instillation required (completely portable)
• Save output voice files as OGG, WMA, MP3, ACC, and WAV files
• Allows you to select different voices to read the text aloud (extra voices can be downloaded online)
• Vocal recognition integrated in
• Can adjust the speed, volume and pitch of the voice
• Compatible with all vocal engines

Cons

• AI dialog system is completely useless (although may be amusing to some)
• Sometimes can be difficult to understand

Discussion

There are a ton of different TTS programs on the market today. Some of them can cost a lot of money, while others are free. Usually, the free ones are nothing to write home about. However, every once in a while a decent one will come along. Dspeech is not a perfect TTS program, but it gets the job done.

Dspeech actually has a lot going for it when you consider how small this program is. In total, it is about 2MB. That’s it! No installation required, no changes to your registry, nothing. That was reason enough for me to give the program a go. After downloading it, however, I became fairly impressed with what it had to offer.

First of all, the program reads text. That should be a given. It performs this task very quickly and does not seem to hog any of your computer’s resources. As with other TTS programs, the voice can be hard to understand at times. In general, however, I did not have to hard of a time making out what the program was saying, even when not “reading along.”

Another cool feature is the ability to save the output file as a MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA or OGG. This gives you the ability to save the output and play it on other devices. Guess this would make it possible to listen to certain text files on the go when you don’t have time to read them.

Dspeech does allow you to select different voices. On my computer, I had two voices to choose from, “Microsoft Anna” and “Toshiba Adult US” (which looks a lot like a Final Fantasy character). You also have the ability to download other voices off the internet and use them with this program as well.

The program does support vocal recognition as well. This can be used with the program’s built-in AI program. I assume that they put this AI system in for the fun of it or at least I hope so, because it really isn’t good for anything but a quick laugh.

CONCLUSION AND DOWNLOAD LINK

This is a pretty straightforward TTS program. Despite this fact, I was fairly impressed with how well it works. It gets the job done, and I didn’t even have to install it to my computer. If you are looking for a TTS program, Dspeech is well worth a look.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.56.5

Supported OS: Windows NT /2000 / XP /Vista

Download size: 2MB

VirusTotal malware scan results: 2/44

Is it portable? Yes

Dspeech homepage