TTS Video Maker anyone?

101 replies
I have been getting bombarded with promotions for TTS Video maker.

Have been trying to find some honest reviews for this. I want to know if it is worth it? Has anyone tried it? I am a bit skeptical about this kind of thing, because I have never heard it sounding natural.
#maker #tts #video
  • Profile picture of the author myonnet
    I'm curious about this product as well, i just wonder what are the rights on the voices the software uses.
    To my knowledge all the TTS engine producers require a special commercial license for publishing the generated voice sounds online.The software itself is not expensive but can lead to big legal issues if voices does not come with commercial rights and the generated video files are published on YouTube for example. I have not seen anything about that on the sales page.

    Cheers,
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    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Pilotben View Post

      I have been getting bombarded with promotions for TTS Video maker.

      Have been trying to find some honest reviews for this. I want to know if it is worth it? Has anyone tried it? I am a bit skeptical about this kind of thing, because I have never heard it sounding natural.
      He uses one of the voices in his sales page video.

      And yes, some fairly decent sounding voices are available if you feel like paying the money to the major TTS voice providers. You can make those voices sound even better if you know how to use proper TTS voice syntax (if capable).

      Originally Posted by myonnet View Post

      I'm curious about this product as well, i just wonder what are the rights on the voices the software uses.
      To my knowledge all the TTS engine producers require a special commercial license for publishing the generated voice sounds online.The software itself is not expensive but can lead to big legal issues if voices does not come with commercial rights and the generated video files are published on YouTube for example. I have not seen anything about that on the sales page.

      Cheers,
      I purchased the program and he appears to be using the Google TTS engine. I have not yet fully researched the Google voice API and other related terms and conditions but I am crossing my fingers and hoping that Jimmy has done his homework here.

      I have paid the "big money" for commercial voices in the past so I know exactly what you are talking about when you speak of commercial use licenses. In-fact I contacted almost every major TTS voice provider in the business last year when I was researching the commercial use of voices and most of the prices ranged from $750 to thousands and thousands of dollars depending on what your ultimate commercial end use is. A few exceptions to that rule do exist, with pay-per-minute, pay-per-word, and pay-per-character being a few of those exceptions.

      As far as the software goes I have tried it just briefly so I am not prepared to do a full review yet on the software. All I have done so far is listened to the voice playback after inserting some text in the input box.

      If anyone can find anything in Google's terms that disallow commercial use please post that information here.

      Cheers

      -don
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      • Profile picture of the author moreno
        i get and try tts
        yes the voice s not bad , but the videos are poor .
        i mean ,are not engaging and they look cheap ,i did not reach to copy and paste text ,i had to hand write ...,i was not able to get the text not appearing but only the voice over 1 image ,all in all is a cheap soft and the videos reflect this ...
        is up to you if you want to spam YT with such a videos
        i contact Jimmi for help about this topics let's see
        i'm more on the refounding site at the moment ,'cause the soft is an old one remade .
        video genie is about the same and is a bonus ( previous optin ...) but has better voice and it's free..
        my rating 2/10
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        • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
          Banned
          Originally Posted by moreno View Post

          i did not reach to copy and paste text ,i had to hand write
          I was able to copy and then paste by using the [Control-V] keyboard shortcut.

          Cheers

          -don
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          • Profile picture of the author Pilotben
            Thank you Don for your input, I'm busy making the decision. I appreciate it.
            Signature

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            • Profile picture of the author Gene C
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              • Profile picture of the author funprojects
                The images you use need to be 1280 x 720; but I only tried 3 images; maybe things get buggy when there are more of them.

                Example 1 TTS VM; VLC; WMM
                Example 2 end result

                So, the workflow would involve 1) getting images; 2) batch-resizing (external application or online); 3) typing in the script; 4) loading images in the precise order you want them as there is no easy way to reorder; 5) preview, convert, upload, check

                I don't think you could sell a substandard product video like the result for more than 1 buck; is it worth the time?
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                • Profile picture of the author Gene C
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                  • Profile picture of the author funprojects
                    Gene, my pleasure! That is the size of the white background jpg that comes with the software. An alternative fix might be to replace this file with your own, naming it exactly white-background.jpg (and rename the original file so that you keep it as a back-copy). That's a much better way to "brand" your videos, killing two brirds with one stone - place your logo exactly where you want it and use your custom background. Check the screenshot here:

                    I am poking around the software files; maybe we can find a hack for the TTS settings!
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                    • Profile picture of the author funprojects
                      Found a way to edit the text file - locate the file named text.txt in the Projects folder, make the changes and open the software. The first 2 mins in the video show it.

                      The rest of the video is me struggling with the images. Basically, the after you choose some images in the software, it copies them into the Images folder of the relevant project file, and names them image001, image002 and so on. So if there is a way to batch resize and rename images in the order you want them, and then just copy those into the project images folder, this should save time. Not worth it perhaps for a video with 3-4 images but longer sequences could be processed faster that way. Any ideas?

                      tts01 - YouTube
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        • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
          Banned
          Originally Posted by moreno View Post

          i get and try ttsvideo genie is about the same and is a bonus ( previous optin ...) but has better voice and it's free..
          What? I have Turbo Video Genie and it does not come with any voices --> it only accesses voices that you already have on your system. The free Microsoft voices that come on most systems are not better than the Google voices.

          What particular program and voice are you talking about?
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          • Profile picture of the author myonnet
            Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

            What? I have Turbo Video Genie and it does not come with any voices --> it only accesses voices that you already have on your system. The free Microsoft voices that come on most systems are not better than the Google voices.

            What particular program and voice are you talking about?
            Voices on your system are most likely licensed for personal usage. I'm not sure about Windows OS but for Mac OSX the license is clear in this regard:

            Apple - Legal - Software

            For Snow Leopard the SLA specifically covers "Voices" (para 2, E):

            "you may use the voices..... while running the Apple Software and to create your own original content and projects for your personal, non-commercial use. No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this license...."

            Using them for any public/commercial purposes could lead to legal issues. Myself, i would not risk that, especially with Apple, Microsoft or Google!
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            • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
              Banned
              Originally Posted by myonnet View Post

              Voices on your system are most likely licensed for personal usage. I'm not sure about Windows OS but for Mac OSX the license is clear in this regard:

              Apple - Legal - Software

              For Snow Leopard the SLA specifically covers "Voices" (para 2, E):

              "you may use the voices..... while running the Apple Software and to create your own original content and projects for your personal, non-commercial use. No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this license...."

              Using them for any public/commercial purposes could lead to legal issues. Myself, i would not risk that, especially with Apple, Microsoft or Google!
              You may have missed one of my posts above:

              Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

              I have paid the "big money" for commercial voices in the past so I know exactly what you are talking about when you speak of commercial use licenses. In-fact I contacted almost every major TTS voice provider in the business last year when I was researching the commercial use of voices and most of the prices ranged from $750 to thousands and thousands of dollars depending on what your ultimate commercial end use is. A few exceptions to that rule do exist, with pay-per-minute, pay-per-word, and pay-per-character being a few of those exceptions.

              http://www.warriorforum.com/internet...ml#post9406465
              As I have already mentioned I pay the big money for commercial voice broadcast licenses and on top of that I have almost 100 open source voices on my system. And no, the open source voices do not sound as good as the pro voices that I pay for.

              That said...I have done several hours of research on MS TTS and I have yet find something that says Microsoft specifically disallows commercial use. In-fact many non-Microsoft websites dealing with TTS say that you can use MS TTS vioces commercially, but I have found very little relevant information from Microsoft directly --> even when I issued a support request.

              Here is a bit of what I have found...

              I am not sure the TTS voices are considered a media element but here goes:

              MEDIA ELEMENTS AND TEMPLATES

              Microsoft grants you a license to copy, distribute, perform and display media elements (images, clip art, animations, sounds, music, video clips, templates and other forms of content) included with the software and the Office web apps in projects and documents, except that you may not: (i) sell, license or distribute copies of any media elements by themselves or as a product if the primary value of the product is the media elements; (ii) grant your customers rights to further license or distribute the media elements; (iii) license or distribute for commercial purposes media elements that include the representation of identifiable individuals, governments, logos, trademarks, or emblems or use these types of images in ways that could imply an endorsement or association with your product, entity or activity; or (iv) create obscene or scandalous works using the media elements. Other media elements, which are accessible on Office.com or on other websites through Office features, are governed by the terms on those websites.
              Regarding the Microsoft Speech Platform:

              2. ADDITIONAL LICENSING REQUIREMENTS AND/OR USE RIGHTS.
              a. Distributable Code. The software contains code that you are permitted to distribute in programs you develop if you comply with the terms below.
              i. Right to Use and Distribute. The code and text files listed below are “Distributable Code.”
              · REDIST.TXT Files. You may copy and distribute the object code form of code listed in REDIST.TXT files.
              · Third Party Distribution. You may permit distributors of your programs to copy and distribute the Distributable Code as part of those programs.
              ii. Distribution Requirements. For any Distributable Code you distribute, you must
              · add significant primary functionality to it in your programs;
              · require distributors and external end users to agree to terms that protect it at least as much as this agreement;
              If you can find more MS TTS information feel free to post it here. If you can find specific commercial use info on the Google voices by all means please do post it here.

              Cheers

              -don
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              • Profile picture of the author funprojects
                1. I tried to use TTS syntax but there is no way - the built-in TTS engine treats the text just like, well, plain text.
                2. It would be nice to have some control over speed or insert pauses but, again, this would require the software to be able to read TTS syntax.
                3. No control over picture size whatsoever - that kind of beats the purpose of buying this software as a means of quickly making videos of aceptable quality - if I have to spend time resizing the pictures I might be better off using good ole Powerpoint and the better voices (Ivona, NeoSpeech and some others) that I also have.
                Overall, the videos made with TTS videomaker are disappointing; with TurboVideoGenie (which I also have) at least I can use the SAPI5 voices and syntax. Will try to tweak and play some more but... At this point the software is half-baked, I am afraid. If it were on a trial basis, I would have uninstalled already.
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                • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by funprojects View Post

                  1. I tried to use TTS syntax but there is no way - the built-in TTS engine treats the text just like, well, plain text.

                  2. It would be nice to have some control over speed or insert pauses but, again, this would require the software to be able to read TTS syntax.

                  I might be better off using good ole Powerpoint and the better voices (Ivona, NeoSpeech and some others) that I also have.

                  Overall, the videos made with TTS videomaker are disappointing; with TurboVideoGenie (which I also have) at least I can use the SAPI5 voices and syntax
                  Yeah, the inability to use at least some basic TTS syntax is a downer.

                  As far as your NeoSpeech, Ivona and other "better" voices go are you just using those internally in your business? Or have you purchased broadcast and/or distribution licenses to allow commercial use and publication to YouTube and your website etc?

                  I have contacted all of the major standalone voice providers and they all have said the basically same thing.

                  NeoSpeech:

                  Limited rights / use for audio output: NeoSpeech grants the end user, a non-transferable, limited, non-exclusive, terminable license to use the Audio Output for personal and non-commercial use only. To obtain a commercial, non-profit, institutional license, please contact NeoSpeech
                  My inquiry directly to real people at NeoSpeech:

                  Personal users CAN put personal videos as a private link but NOT to be shown to general public. If this is the case then it is allowed.

                  If the video is reachable on Youtube, then it is public and commercial, and not permitted under the usage agreement.

                  Thank you,

                  Trevor P. Shephard
                  Sales Executiv
                  e
                  NeoSpeech Text-to-Speech voices | Interactive TTS Demo | TTS SDK | Office Direct: 408-496-1250 | Fax:408-914-2710
                  So I asked how much for one voice to use publicly on YouTube

                  The software package you would require for this project starts at $950 per year.
                  $950 bucks a year to use a NeoSpeech voice on YT.

                  Ivona appears to be much the same as the standard voice license is for personal use only and does not include a commercial, distribution or a broadcast license.

                  Non-commercial materials for personal use
                  Just to distribute to your employess you need to pay $650 bucks a voice.

                  Standard license - for distribution of speech content to your employees only
                  e-learning and training materials, corporate presentations, multimedia materials
                  To distribute publicly on YouTube etc. the price is so high it's not even listed on their website...you must submit a form to get a price.

                  Extended license - for users who want to publish created speech files in various products or services publications, multimedia materials, IVR voice prompts, public announcement recordings
                  IVONA Studio | IVONA Text-to-speech

                  Cepstral only wants $1200 a year for a distribution license.

                  My question to Cepstral support:

                  So with the standard license (not a redistribution license) can I upload my videos using a Cepstral voice to youtube for personal use?

                  How about doing a review video or promo video with the voice...is this allowed under the normal license? Or is the redistribution license any cheaper?

                  Thanks for your time.
                  The reply from Cepstral:

                  09/06/2013 2:05 pm
                  Don,

                  You would need to purchase an Audio Distribution License yourself. The cost would be the same $1,200 per year.

                  Patrick Dexter
                  iSpeech wanted $200 for 4000 words on public videos (YouTube, Website, etc).


                  Hi Don,

                  Thanks for your email. Our personal accounts can only be used for dynamic
                  text to speech which will not be shared publicly.
                  If you need to store the audio in order to create a youtube video, that
                  would be considered commercial use. You can purchase "static" tts credits
                  which include a license to generate and distribute audio files (or make
                  public). Pricing is based on the # of words you need.

                  Once I have a better idea about the # words, I can provide pricing. To
                  give you an idea, pricing starts at 4k words for $200.

                  Best,
                  Vanessa
                  Cerepoc was about as cheap as I could find for standalone voices for an unlimited n.umber of words/characters.

                  Personal use license was out for YouTube.

                  Hi Don,

                  The personal license only permits use by a single user on a single machine, so adding voices to videos on YouTube wouldn't be covered by that.

                  Best regards,
                  Graham
                  If you wished to use the voices for commercial use, you would need a commercial license and an audio broadcast license to permit you to redistribute the audio with your animations. A commercial license would be £99 per voice per year and an audio broadcast license would be £395 per voice per year.

                  If you have any further questions, then just get back to me.

                  Best regards,
                  Graham
                  I contacted several other standalone TTS voice providors as well...all were singing them same tune. If you want to put the videos on YT for public display (or any other public site including your personal website) you are going to pay the piper some serious cabbage.

                  Cheers

                  -don
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                  • Profile picture of the author funprojects
                    I have personal use licences. The thing is, I purchased them for rapid prototyping purposes (instructional design projects) so when the project gets approved, the agency I work with, which has appropriate licences, uses their licence when the product goes live. I have to have my own copies, though as I work from home and travel a bit. So, I suppose, I am in the twilight zone - but I don't publish anything anywhere.

                    Hate to even think how much cabbage will be chopped if an unlicenced video appears on youtube or elsewhere public!

                    P.S. I vaguely remember Ivona had a kinda pay-per-use solution, as a cloud service, before Amazon bought them but it seems to be no longer available.
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                    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
                      Banned
                      Originally Posted by funprojects View Post

                      P.S. I vaguely remember Ivona had a kinda pay-per-use solution, as a cloud service, before Amazon bought them but it seems to be no longer available.
                      Yeah, iSpeech and several others do offer pay-per-use commercial solutions. Some of the services are fairly reasonable if you don't have tons of TTS work to do.

                      Cheers

                      -don
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          • Profile picture of the author moreno
            Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

            What? I have Turbo Video Genie and it does not come with any voices --> it only accesses voices that you already have on your system. The free Microsoft voices that come on most systems are not better than the Google voices.

            What particular program and voice are you talking about?
            sorry i use TVG once and the male voice was not toobad ,the lady voice was kind of Indian english ,but i also don't like the soft anyway ,poor videos only kind of spammy clips nobody will like (hopefully...) but YOU are much more an expert on TT voices than I i see. thanks but i prefer me talking than using this kind of cheap soft ,just my opinion ,maybe in the future when someone will create a better one .
            About the license i see YOU have a great knowledge ,thanks again for sharing , personally i even did not guess for a second ( never could imagine someone selling withouth a license and all the "mail gurus "" flooding my inbox try to sell such a rysky soft.
            have a great time
            Frank
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            • Profile picture of the author funprojects
              Especially for you, Moreno - a demo with some voices. They can sound much better when tweaked properly; this was a quick job for fun.
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              • Profile picture of the author moreno
                Originally Posted by funprojects View Post

                Especially for you, Moreno - a demo with some voices. They can sound much better when tweaked properly; this was a quick job for fun.
                hi, very kind of you but sorry i really did not like anyone of the voices ....you can find much better one but are costly a bit.
                people don't like robot voice that sound like robot....
                anyway thanks and keep up the fun!
                b.t.w. i got refound by mr.j.m. after he send a very bad and rude email to me , not really the way to treat customers.
                and probably next time he should not put the link of the OTO software in the same page where you download the main offer.....maybe a little bit more of checking before going live .
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                • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by moreno View Post

                  hi, very kind of you but sorry i really did not like anyone of the voices ....you can find much better one but are costly a bit.
                  people don't like robot voice that sound like robot....
                  anyway thanks and keep up the fun!
                  Hey Moreno, one of my high dollar voices has a request of you.


                  No tweaking, no TTS syntax and stock voice animation with no adjustments or fancy stuff whatsoever. In other words, completely push button.

                  Cheers

                  -don
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                  • Profile picture of the author al spaulding
                    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Pilotben View Post

    Have been trying to find some honest reviews for this. I want to know if it is worth it? Has anyone tried it? I am a bit skeptical about this kind of thing, because I have never heard it sounding natural.
    Here is a quick voice sample.


    Unfortunately I was not able to get the captions/slides to work properly but I must admit I have not yet read or watched any of the documentation. Once I get some more time I will see if I can get the software running properly.

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author DrJale
    Hey, this looks just like something I need. TTS is one of the better ones I encountered lately and in my opinion, I'd pay the price just for TTS without video creation. Never considered legal stuff with voice overs before, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author funprojects
    To be honest, I had wrongly imagined this cute piece of software to be similar in functionality (albeit with 6 voices, not 70) to slidetalk. Slidetalk is very limited: images and voices, with or without music. Very basic controls but enough bang for the 5 bucks per commercially usable video (and even cheaper on the Business subscription).
    Oh well... we live, we learn!
    If they keep improving the software, though, I promise to eat all my negative comments!
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    @ funprojects

    Yeah, I was hoping Jimmy would put out a quick update but I guess not this quick. Are you experiencing any crashing issues when you try to delete photos that you have already selected into the software?

    -don
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    • Profile picture of the author funprojects
      Hopefully, Jimmy will explain more about the right to use the voices for public videos, commercial or not.

      Are you experiencing any crashing issues when you try to delete photos that you have already selected into the software?
      Yes, but then I just restarted the project. The bottleneck, timewise, would be resizing. That is, assuming we don't have to research copyright; then it might get really ugly!

      Off-topic, hopefully some altruistic lawyer would put up together a nice course on copyright issues. I find a lot of misleading information in many WSO - from grab any photo you like, to photos on Amazon, Instagram, Google etc are up for grabs in commercial projects, to "just do a screenshot of the photo you like, and then you become the copyright owner, and so on! Weird, to say the least, when claims can be made retroactively... Oh well...
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      • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
        Banned
        Originally Posted by funprojects View Post

        Hopefully, Jimmy will explain more about the right to use the voices for public videos, commercial or not.

        Yes, but then I just restarted the project. The bottleneck, timewise, would be resizing. That is, assuming we don't have to research copyright; then it might get really ugly!

        Off-topic, hopefully some altruistic lawyer would put up together a nice course on copyright issues. I find a lot of misleading information in many WSO - from grab any photo you like, to photos on Amazon, Instagram, Google etc are up for grabs in commercial projects, to "just do a screenshot of the photo you like, and then you become the copyright owner, and so on! Weird, to say the least, when claims can be made retroactively... Oh well...
        I can answer a good number of the image copyright, license and fair use questions as I have been in the stock photo business professionally for the past 13 years. I own a library of almost 1 million of my own images and I currently have 60+ photo and image related domains. Back in the day I owned as many as 200 image sites...

        I have worked with the WF admins to have many bogus WSOs closed for selling pirated material and I have caught many bogus sales pages that have had to be changed because they were using pirated material.

        Yes, a fairly large percentage of the people selling software and plugins that scrape, obtain images, or need images to function spew a lot of bogus information all over this forum. It's not just the plugin and software sellers spewing the bunk info, you also find terrible advice in some of the info products and on the general information threads it can get quite ridiculous sometimes!

        It is a fact that a ton of very good copyright and image use information already exists on the web --> but unfortunately that information seems to be regularly ignored. It's a sad fact that some folks think whatever you find on the web is fair game and they are completely oblivious to copyrights, releases and other associated law. I have made dozens of very long insightful copyright and image use posts to this forum and I have linked to quite a few very good off-site resources when people got a little too stupid and loose with their bogus information.

        I should do a copyright WSO myself (and have been asked to do so several times) but I doubt very much that it would do anything to slow down the WSO crowd from passing along bogus information. Nope, I am not a lawyer but most of us that are in the image business professionally are fairly well schooled (and advised) on the do's and don'ts of photo and image use. Licenses, fair use, releases etc. etc.

        While I don't know everything, I do have a pretty good understanding of US copyright law and if you have any specific questions feel free to PM me and I will do my best to point you in the right direction.

        That said, it would be nice if I could find some licensing and ToS information on the use of these Google voices!

        Resizing is not much of a hassle for me since I have my own library of high rez images, but the bugs and the crashing is a problem and I am not willing to spend much more time on this.

        On-top of the bugs I have sent 6 emails (2 different addresses) and a PM trying to get my "bonuses" from one of the so-called "big name" affiliates and I have yet to receive anything...no bonuses, no email replies, nothing but a waste of my time. I usually don't get too excited over bonuses since most of them can be found on the big PLR/MRR membership sites anyway. But in this case I actually looked through several different bonus offers, cleaned my cookies twice, and then made the purchase because I wanted to support Jimmy's product and check out the voices to see if they were viable.

        I already own dozens of slideshow and animation tools and a usable commercial TTS solution and I don't have a lot of patience left for this. I hope Jimmy has a lot of success with the product once he gets the bugs worked out but for now I may be putting this one back on the shelf.

        All of that said, if the voices can be used commercially, and if the software would run smoothly this could be a great product for the money even with it's limitations. In-fact if the the voices are legit for commercial use I could do single frame TTS videos and then extract the audio to use in my animation software that is partially voice driven.

        Yeah, I guess the licensing may get a little fuzzy on that application even if I do find the documentation.
        Oh well, it was just a thought...

        Cheers

        -don
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        • Profile picture of the author funprojects
          Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

          Yeah, I guess the licensing may get a little fuzzy on that application even if I do find the documentation.
          -don
          As far as I remember Google TTS never had its own ToS, it was part of the Google Translate but when they launged the paid Google Translate API they omitted all reference to voices in the new ToS. Hopefully, Jimmy will inform us exactly where we stand on this, using the TTS VM.

          Thank you for your kind offer to help, Don! I have never produced anything in my own name; it's always been contract work so I haven't had to deal with these issues myself (except out of curiosity). However... I have been buying PLR packages and now how do I check which packages are legit?? For instance, I downloaded Vectortoons pack from a reputable PLR site, and later on read that it has been pinched from the vectortoon website without permission?! How does one stay on the safe side? Would you recommend eschewing PLR sites altogether?

          It would take a huge amount of time, and the responsibility would be huge, too, to put together a guidebook or similar, especially considering the global audience here (I am not in the US myself; work/live in GB and BG). My general impression is that for the time being everyone does whatever they can get away with. But this will not continue for a long time, and it will be very, very ugly when the shooting starts.
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    A small sorta off-topic update --> I finally received my bonuses from Mao 8 days after purchase.

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    @ funprojects

    Yeah, the only real info I have found on the Google voices so far was referencing the "old" Google Translate. Have you asked Jimmy directly about the actual voice licenses? I have read his legal info that he provides with the software...

    As far as purchasing and using PLR graphics it certainly can be a risk. In-fact most of the graphics PLR I use I try to purchase directly from the graphic artist, photographer or image artist that created or rendered the images. If not purchased directly I still try to know who the original source of the images is/was and what the original license terms were.

    One of the most common ways of checking to see if the images were pirated (or legal) is by using reverse image searches that are available online like Google and TinEye and then cross checking the sites they are presented on. Sometimes it easy to see the image was pirated, other times you can make pretty good assumptions on the legality of the images but it all depends on how much time you want to spend on "verification".

    It might be easiest (and safest) to just to avoid most of the PLR that you don't know who the original source is. Some folks believe that you can hide behind a bogus third party license, but I don't think that legal strategy will hold up all that well depending the original source of the images, and how the package was obtained and presented. IMO many of those "licenses" are not worth the notepad page they were "printed" on.

    Unfortunately I am not sure when then shooting will start as it seems this problem has been getting exponentially worse for over a decade. The big fight to keep the internet "free" has not been all that beneficial to folks trying to protect their images, videos, art and other intellectual properties. The explosion of social media has also contributed to the piracy problem in a very big way --> and now it is such a large problem it will difficult for anyone to reign it back in.

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author Gene C
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author funprojects
      GeneC - how is it going? I have downloaded the updated version but no time to test it yet as I have a new toy (the RunClick plugin) and stuck in wordpress right now.

      Have been thinking about this TTS VM; the voices are not too bad, indeed, and if we can use videos publicly (no response from Jimmy on that yet; anyone?), it will come in really handy. What we lose in voice quality and in the somewhat limited flexibility, we can compensate perhaps with good slide design?

      Will upload some stuff I played with yesterday later. It makes post-editing the TTS VM videos a bit easier.
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  • Profile picture of the author funprojects
    Moreno, thanks for your feedback. Would be nice if you share you superior voices with the rest; preferably untweaked (like our demos).
    The debate on whether to use or not to use TTS would sidetrack this topic unnecessarily. My thoughts boil down to "horses for courses" (no pun intended as I mostly do elearning). Would be happy to discuss but we should keep this rthread on-topic, I guess.

    ForumGuru, is that CrazyTalk?

    Good news, guys! Jimmy replied regarding the TTS rights. I asked in the email:
    Can we safely make products not for private use but for commercial distribution?
    He wrote back, saying:
    Hello Elena,

    Feel free to use the voices as there are no restriction with the Google Api voices for now - Aug 2014.

    Regards,

    JM
    Have a great weekend, all!
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    • Profile picture of the author funprojects
      Yesterday I had an hour off and tried to do a couple of quick projects, nothing fancy, with the TTS Video Maker. It kept crashing when I tried to change some of the text inside the console; once it had generated an audio stream, it didn't want to regenerate after changes had been applied to the text. It becomes really unmanageable to make a video article of, say, 50 sentences - OK, let's assume I want to keep it simple and use 5 images only; still, in the current setup you have to upload each time individually, no batch uploading, and on top of it all it keeps asking "Are you sure you want to upload the same image?" OK, I know I can be scatter-brained, and the software has figured this out somehow, too, but it makes the whole image uploading process rather time consuming and beats the purpose: having a no-frills, simple and straight-forward video article generator.

      However, I will not give up on it and ask for a refund. And even though Jimmy Mancini doesn't need advertisers, I'd like to add this: I trust him to keep on working on this project and fix the bugs, and not pull a runner like, well, I will skip the finger-pointing. He is one of the product creators that have demonstrated their integrity, and that is a precious quality on these boards. So, I am staying with the software. This is a case of paying it forward. After all, who is perfect? I know I am not!

      Sorry about the rant, needed to get it out of my system. Have a great week!
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  • Profile picture of the author Gene C
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author funprojects
      Off-topic * just stumbled across this today * Video Editing Software. Download Free Video Movie Editor

      If you don't have the latest Camtasia 8, this one has easy to use chroma key, plus the transitions are cool. Works well with VirtualDub plugins. Free for home use till end of August, and 50% upgrade. Ufffffffffff I will get totally broke, but this is a nice toy.
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      • Profile picture of the author RobertoM
        Hey there,

        I'm interested in TTSVM but reading this thread the product seems to be a bit green so far.

        Most of the posts here are from a few warriors (Forumguru, Funproject and Gene C, ) and I'm surprised by the lack of posts or answers of the product creator (Jimmy?)

        The comments are mainly addressing legal or copyright subjects and very little about the product functionality and reliabilty.

        I'll wait for some more info here before going forward.

        Thank you anyways!
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        • Profile picture of the author funprojects
          Hi, Roberto!
          This thread is not an official support thread so I don't think Jimmy will be answering questions here; he does answer questions really promptly, in fact, remarkably fast at 1 day max, even during launch. He is aware of this thread but if you have a question, ask Jimmy directly.

          We did discuss technical issues but we moved on to discuss other related issues, hence the legal stuff. The thread is open, ask/comment - well, not the thread, but on-topic. To the best of my knowledge, none of us is here in the capacity of a promoter/affiliate, not an even appointed basher, so we just discuss any stuff that comes along.

          Yes, the software might be green but only a bit, and I think Jimmy has those glitches fixed, as far as I am concerned. No more crashes but then I started doing only one project at a time, and did all the storyboarding outside TTS. Even if you use it just for getting legal (as of now) TTS-recorded audios, it is worth it. There are lots of other ways to get them free, legally or illegally. Plus, there is better software for the job; it's just that prices start over 1000 bucks. Horses for courses; this horse looks OK to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author alice1202
    Reading this thread is scaring me to death.
    I was within inches of putting up a slideshow on PIntererst with the voice over that I had found on a "free site" from the UK. All you had to do was to type in the text up to 300 characters and the voice would read it.

    I have en email mailed to them now to get more information, but I don't know.
    I really wanted that British accent because I'm Southern and I don't like my accent.

    I'm also from Nashville and I have heard rumors that some of the stars go to voice coaches to get the "accent" because a lot of them are not even Southern any more.

    So I tried my voice out on audacity and it's okay, not as good as the British one, but it will probably pass. I just don't want any trouble.
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    I'd like to buy this but want to know it legal to use for business videos. I'm using some other software I bought that only has a male TSS voice and believe it's commercial free. The Warrior marketer is also the developer and make fixes and enhancements very fast.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    You should wait about 9 more days...Jimmy is releasing a new version that has multiple voices, male and female, and different languages, plus a better looking output that will create a video from both video clips and images, plus sync the captions to each video clip or photo frame. Much better overall. Launch date is October 14th.

    One of the new male voices and two of the new female voices sound pretty good, better than the female voice of the first version. He's calling it something else though - TTS Video Studio. You can get on the Early Bird list for it and listen to voice samples at the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

      You should wait about 9 more days...Jimmy is releasing a new version that has multiple voices, male and female, and different languages, plus a better looking output that will create a video from both video clips and images, plus sync the captions to each video clip or photo frame. Much better overall. Launch date is October 14th.

      One of the new male voices and two of the new female voices sound pretty good, better than the female voice of the first version. He's calling it something else though - TTS Video Studio. You can get on the Early Bird list for it and listen to voice samples at the site.
      Thanks Joan, Do you know if videos made with this system are legal for commercial use?

      I think I'm going to buy this system and just use the voice(s) with a slick video created using Video Maker FX. Just have to time the voice to the slides. VMFX has a real slick set of slides but you have to pay for voice overs.
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      • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
        Banned
        Originally Posted by GRF View Post

        Do you know if videos made with this system are legal for commercial use?
        According to Jimmy they are.

        Hello Elena,

        Feel free to use the voices as there are no restriction with the Google Api voices for now - Aug 2014.

        Regards,

        JM
        Cheers

        -don
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        • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
          Originally Posted by GRF View Post

          Thanks Joan, Do you know if videos made with this system are legal for commercial use?
          Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

          According to Jimmy they are.

          -don
          Two of the voices I recognized right off the bat from Ivona and Acapela. I guess he shelled out some money for a commercial license.

          Aside...One of the female voices from Ivona was used by the creators of Instabuilder as well, for their tutorial videos (some of them).
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          • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

            Two of the voices I recognized right off the bat from Ivona and Acapela. I guess he shelled out some money for a commercial license.

            Aside...One of the female voices from Ivona was used by the creators of Instabuilder as well, for their tutorial videos (some of them).
            This could be a bit messy (and/or expensive) as I have contacted both of those companies in the past with regards to animations I publish to YT, animations I sell to the public, and animations I want to sell and offer resell rights on.

            This is from the PDF IVONA sent me.

            Publishing and multimedia materials

            Use of Speech: Generated speech can be included as part of multimedia products available for the general public, e.g. video tutorials and smartphone applications.
            Annual License Fee (one Voice, one Workstation): 3000 EUR / 4000 USD per Desktop PC

            Additional Voice: +30%,
            Additional workstation License: +70%,
            Public Announcement Systems, IVR and others
            Use of Speech: Generated speech can be used in public announcement systems (e.g. airports), as well in IVR systems. The pricing structure below applies to cases not covered by options listed above.
            Annual License Fee (one Voice, one workstation): 3000 EUR/ 4000 USD per Desktop PC
            Additional Voice: +30%,
            Additional workstation License: +70%,
            When I talked to these companies most of them told me if the client that purchased from me wanted to resell the animations they would need a commercial broadcast license. In-fact some of the companies told me that my clients would need a broadcast license (not personal use) just to place the videos on a public YT channel.

            IVONA for internal use only (no public websites or YT etc.) was still expensive.

            For internal e-learning
            Use of Speech: Generated speech can be used only for internal e-learning / e-training of Licensee employees.
            Annual License Fee per Voice: 490 EUR / 650 USD per Desktop PC
            Additional Voice: 490 EUR / 650 USD per Desktop PC.
            I would like to see the commercial broadcast license/agreement being used and I would like to see what actual license is passed along to use the end user. Can the videos we the end-user make be *legally* published on YT? Can we the purchaser legally sell the videos to our clients? If we can legally sell the videos can our buyers legally publish the videos to a public channel or website? Can our buyers legally resell the videos and their clients legally publish?

            You get where I am going. I have had discussions with several of these companies and like I said I have been told by many that public broadcast rights don't automatically transfer, and in some cases each client that I sold to would need a broadcast license to publish to open YT channels etc.

            If you can get a copy of the license terms and or somehow verify what type of license is in-place I would love to see it and/or check with the companies and my contacts.

            Cheers

            -don
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            • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
              Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

              If you can get a copy of the license terms and or somehow verify what type of license is in-place I would love to see it and check with the companies and my contacts.-don
              License Terms weren't made available to us in the affiliate review copy we have. He hasn't released them yet, but I'm wondering about it myself. Like you, I knew Ivona was pretty strict. I'm not sure about Acapela. If he did purchase some kind of commercial distribution rights that could be transferred though, he must have paid many thousands just for the Ivona voice.
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              • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

                License Terms weren't made available to us in the affiliate review copy we have. He hasn't released them yet, but I'm wondering about it myself. Like you, I knew Ivona was pretty strict. I'm not sure about Acapela. If he did purchase some kind of commercial distribution rights that could be transferred though, he must have paid many thousands just for the Ivona voice.
                Acapela is very, very strict! In-fact I will link a screenshot of a portion of my conversation with them.



                $1200 bucks per Audio Redistribution License and every customer I sold that wanted to publicly publish a video would also need to purchase a $1200 Audio Redistribution License.

                So if I sold 500 packs of videos to 500 customers each of them would need to purchase at least one $1200 redistribution license to publish the video publicly. In-fact not only did he say each customer, he said each website! Not sure if he meant single customer or single website but either way each of my customers would have needed to fork over at least 1200 bones to be legal.

                Here is the text of the screenshot:

                08/23/2013 4:33 pm
                Hi,

                I want to use the voice in the basic animation software xxxxxxx which utilizes tts to make short animations 1-3 minutes each. I want to be able to sell/distribute the animations where the end user then displays the animation on a website or youtube etc. I am on a very limit budget and the bundles of the shorts I will sell very cheap.

                Thank you and I await your reply.

                Regards.

                08/26/2013 10:40 am
                Don,

                In order to use Cepstral audio in this way each website will need an Audio Distribution License. The cost of this license is $1,200 per year and covers the use of any of our voices.

                Patrick


                08/26/2013 11:37 am
                Thanks anyway.

                09/06/2013 1:29 pm
                One more question...

                So with the standard license (not a redistribution license) can I upload my videos using a Cepstral voice to youtube for personal use?

                How about doing a review video or promo video with the voice...is this allowed under the normal license? Or is the redistribution license any cheaper?

                Thanks for your time.

                09/06/2013 2:05 pm
                Don,

                You would need to purchase an Audio Distribution License yourself. The cost would be the same $1,200 per year.

                Patrick Dexter


                09/06/2013 2:14 pm
                Thanks, Patrick.
                I know they can make other deals and/or have other licenses available, but as you can see the price I was quoted for multi-user publication was quite steep for me and my customers to say the least.

                If you can somehow grab some licensing details it would be appreciated.

                Cheers

                -don
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                • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
                  Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

                  Acapela is very, very strict! In-fact I will link a screenshot of a portion of my conversation with them.



                  $1200 bucks per Audio Redistribution License and every customer I sold that wanted to publicly publish a video would also need to purchase a $1200 Audio Redistribution License.

                  So if I sold 500 packs of videos to 500 customers each of them would need to purchase at least one $1200 redistribution license. In-fact not only did he say each customer, he said each website! Not sure if he meant single customer or single website but either way each of my customers would have needed to fork over at least 1200 bones to be legal.

                  Here is the text of the screenshot
                  Wow. That is strict. lol. Well, his Brenden voice is definitely Graham from Acapela, and his Becky voice is Amy from Ivona - he has obviously altered the tonality of each to some degree - Becky doesn't have the same rich inflections of Amy, but his Brenden actually sounds better than Graham (more base tone - but it results in a few tiny cracks in syllable pronunciation with some words).

                  I think he has also altered the speed of each of the voices. Another one I now recognize is Lucy from Acapela. He calls this one Jane.

                  I'll let you know if he releases the license terms before launch, but so far he doesn't have them ready, or maybe he is just keeping them under wraps for now.
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                  • Profile picture of the author GRF
                    Joan, I like the voice from the original TSS Video Maker. Do you know if that voice is going to be in this new product?

                    Do you have any videos made using TSS Video Maker that you could share viewing?

                    I was thinking of using this voice with Video Maker FX or Easy Sketch Pro for videos with voice-overs.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
                      Originally Posted by GRF View Post

                      Joan, I like the voice from the original TSS Video Maker. Do you know if that voice is going to be in this new product?

                      Do you have any videos made using TSS Video Maker that you could share viewing?

                      I was thinking of using this voice with Video Maker FX or Easy Sketch Pro for videos with voice-overs.
                      No samples;we've just tested the voices is all and I did one small video with a few images which I deleted, but we haven't tested the adding of video clips to it yet.

                      Yes, the original voice of TTS Video Maker is called Gabby in TTS Video Studio, so you're good to go.
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                      • Profile picture of the author GRF
                        Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

                        No samples;we've just tested the voices is all and I did one small video with a few images which I deleted, but we haven't tested the adding of video clips to it yet.

                        Yes, the original voice of TTS Video Maker is called Gabby in TTS Video Studio, so you're good to go.
                        Thanks Joan, Does the Gabby TSS sound pretty real/natural? Good enough to use in promo videos and not sound fake or robotic? I have Video Spin Blaster 2 and wish it had a female voice like Gabby. So I'll most likely buy this software if the Gabby voice doesn't sound too robotic.
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                        • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
                          Originally Posted by GRF View Post

                          Thanks Joan, Does the Gabby TSS sound pretty real/natural? Good enough to use in promo videos and not sound fake or robotic? I have Video Spin Blaster 2 and wish it had a female voice like Gabby. So I'll most likely buy this software if the Gabby voice doesn't sound too robotic.
                          Oh, I wouldn't want to tell you yay or nay on that, because what I think sounds good you might think sounds like crap. lol. People differ in opinion about these voices. I think they sound "acceptable" for some of our projects, but not for everything our team does.

                          You've already heard the original voice from the first version though, right? It's the same in TTS Video Studio. No difference.
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                          • Profile picture of the author GRF
                            Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

                            Oh, I wouldn't want to tell you yay or nay on that, because what I think sounds good you might think sounds like crap. lol. People differ in opinion about these voices. I think they sound "acceptable" for some of our projects, but not for everything our team does.

                            You've already heard the original voice from the first version though, right? It's the same in TTS Video Studio. No difference.
                            Thanks Joan, Will TSS Video Studio be able to embed other videos in a main video like Video Spin Blaster Pro 2 does? What is the ETA for release of this software if you know?
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                            • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
                              Originally Posted by GRF View Post

                              Thanks Joan, Will TSS Video Studio be able to embed other videos in a main video like Video Spin Blaster Pro 2 does? What is the ETA for release of this software if you know?
                              Release date is October 14th.

                              I haven't used Video Spin Blaster. What the new TTS does is let you add as many different video clips as you like and then set them in any sequential order you like - both images and videos, or just videos if you want - and then creates a video out of the compilation.

                              It doesn't spin the videos. If you want multiple versions, you would need to change the order of the videos and images manually after each creation of a video.

                              For me, the main attraction of the software is the voices and being able to use those for commercial use. A plus about the way this software works is that you don't need to include any images or videos to get the audio.

                              When you finish adding your text, and, for example, you click the "Text To Speech" button, it processes the audio file and let's you hear it, but in addition it automatically creates an audio output file in the project folder.

                              So you could add your text, choose a voice, and have the audio file for that voice, and then immediately choose a different voice and click the "Text To Speech" button again and have another audio file in the project folder - both voices in two separate files - just like that...and do that for each voice available if you like.

                              That part is pretty cool.
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                              • Profile picture of the author GRF
                                Ya.. Great. I could use Gabby, export just the audio and use in Video Maker FX.

                                Let me ask you a question. If I had a series of movies made from Video Maker FX and other .MP4 movies, can I have Gabby speak text for the movies make by Video Maker FX and have the other .MP4 movies just use the audio that is in these individual movies and have this program combine them into 1 movie like the example below?

                                In other words, is this going to be doable in TSS Movie Studio?
                                Movie 1 - VMFX - Gabby TSS speaks about content in video
                                Movie 2 - .MP4 - use audio from this movie - No TTS
                                Movie 3 - VMFX - Gabby TSS speaks about content in video
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                                • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
                                  Originally Posted by GRF View Post

                                  Ya.. Great. I could use Gabby, export just the audio and use in Video Maker FX.

                                  Let me ask you a question. If I had a series of movies made from Video Maker FX and other .MP4 movies, can I have Gabby speak text for the movies make by Video Maker FX and have the other .MP4 movies just use the audio that is in these individual movies and have this program combine them into 1 movie like the example below?

                                  In other words, is this going to be doable in TSS Movie Studio?
                                  Movie 1 - VMFX - Gabby TSS speaks about content in video
                                  Movie 2 - .MP4 - use audio from this movie - No TTS
                                  Movie 3 - VMFX - Gabby TSS speaks about content in video
                                  No, it won't work, because the focus of TTS is on the text. In other words, if you add a video or image that you add no text to, then TTS will stop at the point where no voice exists.

                                  It's one of the drawbacks of this software.

                                  At the point of each video where the TTS voice stops, the video also stops.

                                  That's why, imo, TTS is really only good for the audio and then using that audio to match video using another software program, like Camtasia.

                                  I really think Jimmy should have simply focused on making the program only a text to speech program, and then he could have provided different editing options for those voices, such as speed and pitch.

                                  It's impractical to use as a video merge program with voice, because the duration of the video clips added depends on the length of the voice per clip. Not a good situation for video production.

                                  I should add, though, that where video clip duration doesn't matter, it would work out fine, such as a sports video where you have several clips showing activity but it doesn't matter how much of it is shown per clip. In TTS the video clips are just moving backgrounds for the voice in the finalized video.
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                                  • Profile picture of the author GRF
                                    Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

                                    No, it won't work, because the focus of TTS is on the text. In other words, if you add a video or image that you add no text to, then TTS will stop at the point where no voice exists.

                                    It's one of the drawbacks of this software.

                                    At the point of each video where the TTS voice stops, the video also stops.

                                    That's why, imo, TTS is really only good for the audio and then using that audio to match video using another software program, like Camtasia.

                                    I really think Jimmy should have simply focused on making the program only a text to speech program, and then he could have provided different editing options for those voices, such as speed and pitch.

                                    It's impractical to use as a video merge program with voice, because the duration of the video clips added depends on the length of the voice per clip. Not a good situation for video production.

                                    I should add, though, that where video clip duration doesn't matter, it would work out fine, such as a sports video where you have several clips showing activity but it doesn't matter how much of it is shown per clip. In TTS the video clips are just moving backgrounds for the voice in the finalized video.
                                    Actually Video Spin Blaster does do this but it has only 1 voice, a male and the developer can't add a female or other voices. While the male TTS does sound OK, many didn't buy it because it didn't have a female TTS voice.

                                    OK Joan, will probably use it like you will. Just create the speech like hiring for a voice over on fiverr and just match it to the slides in Video Maker FX
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                      • Profile picture of the author GRF
                        Hi Joan or someone else. I'm trying to sign up as an affiliate for TTS Video Studio and have applied on JVZoo and even sent 2 PMs to Jimmy Mancini. But I have not been accepted and no messages from Jimmy.

                        Is anyone else here an affiliate of TSS Video Studio and know a better way to sign up as an affiliate?
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    If you listen to the demo voices at TTS Video Studio: Create Amazing Text To Voice Videos in Minutes, they sound very robotic to me. What do you guys think?
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  • Profile picture of the author pearsonbrown
    Could you both stop quoting the full text of the post immediately above it? Think about people who are reading this conversation.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
      Yup, will do, Pearson. I admit it's become a habit for me just to hit that quote button each time. I might have to enter some kind of treatment program to get over it completely though.
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      • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
        Just got a JV note from the creator of TTS Video Studio that when the software is released on Oct. 14th, it will include a speed adjustment feature for the voices.
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  • Profile picture of the author cjseven
    So seller creates TTS Video Maker and after a few weeks he creates TTS Video Studio.

    According to his last email "TTS Video Studio is like jumping from Windows 95 to Windows 8". So I guess TTS Video Maker is like Window 95...

    It is funny because in TTS Video Maker sales page we can read this great "testimonial":

    "TTS Video Maker is the most amazing piece of software that I've ever got, it's a GAME CHANGER!"

    Well... I think I will wait for ANOTHER seller comes out with Windows 10! Can't trust this one anymore - blacklisted
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      Hi Joan,

      How is it going testing TSS Video Studio. Is he going to release it for sale tomorrow?

      Do you know any more in regards to the legality of selling videos to others or our own videos with the voices? In other words, License Terms?

      Also, can you tell me how many voices will be in TSS Video Studio and in what languages?
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    @GRF Yes, it will be available for sale tomorrow for sure.

    Still not sure about the licence details, but you'll be able to use the videos you create and the voices with those videos commercially.

    I count 3 different US voices, 4 UK voices, 1 Spanish, 1 Mexican Spanish, and then Dutch, Czech, Danish, French, German, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, and Swedish.
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      Just bought it. It says the following. But what about the videos I create for clients or if I use just the voice with some other video making software. Do you know?

      Can I use the videos I create and the voices generated by the software commercially?
      Yes! there are no restriction with the content you create, the voices and the videos you create with the software are exempt of any licenses or fees. Feel free to use them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    @GRF, No restriction means no restriction, GRF. The voice files are created separately from the video files. That's why he has it written "..the voices and the videos you create..." You can create voice files alone. You don't need to create a video file at all. We don't.
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  • Profile picture of the author peterj
    Regarding TTS Video STUDIO. I listened to the demos on the sales page and they actually sound halfway decent,

    Any opinions from buyers who have tested it? Do they sound as good in your own creations?

    I am just looking to use the audios.

    Cheers

    Pete
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    @peterj, Yes, the voices are decent. I wouldn't personally use them for a video sales letter, but for standard YouTube type of preselling and video tutorials (in some cases), they will be great for that, imo.
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      Has anyone tried John from the USA? Every time I preview the speech, the program just freezes.

      Do you know if there is any way to just speak the text and not display it on the images and video clips?

      So far, I'm not to impressed with TTS Video Studio. Video Spin Blaster Pro 2 runs rings around this software as it has many more options. The only problem is that that is has only 1 male voice.

      Also, some words are not pronounced right, like the word "live"as in there is a live event on TV tonight.
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      • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
        Banned
        Originally Posted by GRF View Post

        Has anyone tried John from the USA? Every time I preview the speech, the program just freezes.
        John works for me.

        Do you know if there is any way to just speak the text and not display it on the images and video clips?
        Turn off the captions and if you want just the audio file it should be in the audio folder.

        Also, some words are not pronounced right, like the word "live"as in there is a live event on TV tonight.
        I don't think this software supports SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) and that is what is needed to change the pronunciation without spelling the word differently. You can change the word live to liive and John will pronounce it better, but many of the others won't. If you change it from live to lyve, Gisella and some of the others will pronounce it properly.

        Cheers

        -don
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        • Profile picture of the author GRF
          How do you export just the audio? When I click Create Video, it gives me a warning, using too many characters.

          Right now, I just want the audio. This program is no where near Video Spin Blaster 2 Pro
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    @GRF, You don't export the audio. When you click the "Text To Speech" button, it processes the audio and you'll find a copy of it inside the project folder.

    Look down at the blue link that says "Open Project's Folder" beside the tabs "Video Output, Captions, Effects". Click on that and you'll see the "Audio" folder.
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      Originally Posted by Joan Altz View Post

      @GRF, You don't export the audio. When you click the "Text To Speech" button, it processes the audio and you'll find a copy of it inside the project folder.

      Look down at the blue link that says "Open Project's Folder" beside the tabs "Video Output, Captions, Effects". Click on that and you'll see the "Audio" folder.
      Question for Joan on the audio files produced. When the button "Text To Speech" is clicked 2 audio .MP3 files are produced, one with a file name with a .MP3 extension and another with a _resampled.mp3 name with extension. What is the difference?
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      • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
        Banned
        @GRF

        It looks like the (larger) resampled files have a bitrate of 196kbps and the non-resampled files are a lower bitrate, either 24kbps or 32kbps. 196kbps matches the bitrate of the video file that is created.

        Cheers

        -don
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        • Profile picture of the author GRF
          Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

          @GRF

          It looks like the (larger) resampled files have a bitrate of 196kbps and the non-resampled files are a lower bitrate, either 24kbps or 32kbps. 196kbps matches the bitrate of the video file that is created.

          Cheers

          -don
          OK. Do you know which one is better to use in another app like Camtasia?
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          • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
            Banned
            Originally Posted by GRF View Post

            OK. Do you know which one is better to use in another app like Camtasia?
            Ordinarily when recording audio a higher bitrate is better, but if you are upsampling an audio file produced at 24kbps or 32kbps it's going to be almost impossible to gain quality as you can't pull from the air information that is not there in the first place. I can't really hear anything in the files that tells me Jimmy is doing anything fancy when he upsamples. In-fact it could be argued that the more resampling that is done on a lossy file format, the more information you lose. I believe the resample is being done for coding/encoding reasons and not to increase the sound quality.

            That said, the software I am using resamples the audio, and when it does it creates larger files (much larger when exporting to .mpg4) when using the lower bitrate audio files. That being known, I am going to use the higher bitrate files for that particular software, and any other software that I notice it beneficial to use the higher bitrate files.

            I have tested several straight TTS audio files head-to-head and I can't really hear an audio quality difference, but the resultant final video file size difference was apparent especially when outputting .mpg4 format.

            Cheers

            -don

            Edit: I noticed a large file size difference when using the different audio files in a third party software so I have revised my text above.
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  • Profile picture of the author clagg
    NOTE: This is an edit to the post below. Jimmy did get in contact with me and I did finally get TTS Video Studio downloaded. And I got a good email for him. - Thanks Jimmy Mancini.
    __DeadIntoIt

    ===================

    The JVzoo "Access your Product" link take you to a page where nothing works.

    download stalled at: @ 5, 441 KB 3 times.

    Links to Demo Video, FAQ and How To Video are Broke.

    My email to help@ttsvideostudio.com BOUNCED Twice through my Internet Provider Email.

    Did get an auto response using Gmail. It has a link to an FAQ Page that just says:

    "COMING SOON"

    Has this guy put out such a piece of crap he's gone into hiding or is it so bad he's just overloaded with support email?

    I'm Back At It.
    Signature

    I'm Back At It and DeadIntoIt

    Mike Claggett
    25,000 Listeners - Small Business Talk Radio

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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    @clagg, sent you a pm. Maybe it will help.
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  • Profile picture of the author funprojects
    Hi, guys! I think it is simply brilliant at doing what it can do - generate TTS voice-overs for static slides and assemble a simple video (and the intro/outro option is a great add-on, in my opinion). I think the voices are Google's own - but Jimmy will correct me, if I'm wrong.

    I have had no problems getting it to do what it does best - generate voice-overs - after I stopped bitching about its limitations (sounds a bit robotic; limited control/no SSML; crashes when you insert an animated gif; unnatural prosody when the sentence is too long) until it dawned on me that instead of trying to make it do what it can't do, I'd better focus on what it can do for me. It's great at producing infovideos, explainers, product overviews - but it won't get warm and fuzzy and chirrupy and seduce anyone into buying some crappy product just cos the presenter's cute.

    Will try to sum up:
    • Problem: sounds robotic My solution: this is not always bad; in fact, we can use it to our advantage. The quality is acceptable, it doesn't irritate people. Some studies on UX have suggested that TTS-powered virtual assistants increase the trust factor, they are perceived as unbiased, objective, "not trying to sell me something". They are great for delivering information. Sometimes emotions may get in the way and blur our judgement - imagine Todd Gross delivering messages at the airport?
    • Problem: need to format text properly - you can't just paste, click and get the video you want True to some extent; there is room for improvement - for example, use some special character, not the full stop, to enable transition from one slide to another. At some point the screen gets too cluttered. Depending on the project, you might be better off just generating the audio, and then using the mp3 file with any other software - PPT, Camtasia, whatever you need. If you are serious about using TTS in your projects, sooner or later you will need a proper SSML editor; until then, TTS Video Suite will do the job.However, for simple jobs ( Amazon product review in 10 languages, anyone?) this is good enough!

    Overall, until PPT guys add TTS with free voices so that the output can be distributed commercially, I will keep the TTS Video Studio. It does what it says on the box. Unfortunately, I can't compare it to Video Blaster as I don't have it; judging from the description, it is a product intended to meet different needs so comparing the two might be as pointless as comparing apples and pears. But... why buy a bicycle if you need a car?
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    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
      Banned
      Originally Posted by funprojects View Post

      I think the voices are Google's own - but Jimmy will correct me, if I'm wrong.
      I don't believe the TTS Video Studio voices are from Google as I and others recognize some of the voices as originating from elsewhere.

      Cheers

      -don
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  • Profile picture of the author Blazon1
    How does TTS Video Studio compare with Video Alchemy, which is another, similar product? I'm not finding a review for VA at this board, but maybe someone here has tried it out.
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  • Profile picture of the author atlanta2008
    How or where do I purchase TTS Video Studio?

    JVZoo links to
    Code:
    http://ttsvideostudio.com/
    And then on there, purchase now link scrolls up to
    Code:
    http://ttsvideostudio.com/#pricing
    Which does nothing but shows pricing.
    Signature
    Click Here For: Alexa Rank Improvement Service, Cheap Global Alexa Rank,
    100K only $29/mo*** , 100% US RANK , 100% Positive Reviews, 100% Money Back Guaranteed Results!
    *** Only $29/mo when you purchase 3 months of service in advance.Regular WF price is $33/mo. Bulk orders available
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    • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
      Originally Posted by atlanta2008 View Post

      How or where do I purchase TTS Video Studio?

      JVZoo links to
      Code:
      http://ttsvideostudio.com/
      And then on there, purchase now link scrolls up to
      Code:
      http://ttsvideostudio.com/#pricing
      Which does nothing but shows pricing.

      Yeah, I wouldn't use the navigation buttons at all on the site. For some reason Jimmy hasn't set those up properly. You should be able to just scroll down and see the prices, just as ForumGuru already stated.

      Another thing is a connection early on between the old version, called TTS Video Maker, and new version, TTS Video Studio, but I believe that is fixed now. Or perhaps it was just in cache. Not sure.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      An aside...The best way to buy a lot of these products is going to the JVZoo site and doing a marketplace search. I've recently found a lot of great products that I didn't even know existed, and some of them are better than the products being promoted heavily too.

      JVZoo has improved the search results in their marketplace and it's a good way to just find something you want, or if you forgot the name of a product, finding it directly through the marketplace.
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    @Blazon1

    I have them both but unfortunately I have not had time to check them out very well. VA is based on templates (only 15-20 come with it standard) sorta like VideoMakerFx --> but so far I have not found a way to play back the TTS before the video is rendered which is not a good way to go. The software has a lot of voices, and some voice control, and it will scrape articles and spin them, but I am more concerned about hearing how the TTS sounds before I take the time to render the video. If I get some extra time I will try to post a bit more...

    @atlanta2008

    Scroll almost all the way to the bottom of the main sales page and you should see 3 large buy now buttons. I clicked on the buttons and they did take me to the JVZoo checkout page.

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    @Blazon1

    The creators of VA sent an email saying an update is coming that will allow previewing the TTS prior to encoding as well as a feature to allow straight slides and images. They promise more updates are coming as well...

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author atlanta2008
    http://goo.gl/0qSpqN

    Found it!
    For some reason Buy button is not showing in my browser , by clicking on the bottom area i was able to hit the "invisible " link and purchased. thanks!
    Signature
    Click Here For: Alexa Rank Improvement Service, Cheap Global Alexa Rank,
    100K only $29/mo*** , 100% US RANK , 100% Positive Reviews, 100% Money Back Guaranteed Results!
    *** Only $29/mo when you purchase 3 months of service in advance.Regular WF price is $33/mo. Bulk orders available
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    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
      Banned
      Originally Posted by atlanta2008 View Post

      Found it!
      For some reason Buy button is not showing in my browser , by clicking on the bottom area i was able to hit the "invisible " link and purchased. thanks!
      Yeah, I had a user on a tablet that could not see the JVZoo buy button on my latest WSO. I'm glad to to hear you were able to purchase.

      Best of luck!

      Cheers

      -don
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    Does anyone have a "cheat sheet" on the various punctuations you can use for inflections in the voice.

    Things like use of a "." or "," or NEW LINE, etc. ?
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    • Profile picture of the author GRF
      So far I like the 2 female voice, Giselle (UK) and Gabby (USA). I'm using these voices for my product explainer videos. I think they sound REALLY like real people speaking. Actually very amazing. The downside is some words don't get spoken correctly so I had to change the words so they were spoken correctly, but not many, like 3 or 4.

      Has anyone in this thread tried the foreign language voices for quality? I can't tell because I don't speak any of those foreign languages.
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      • Profile picture of the author GRF
        I'm just using the TTS option only to get an .MP3 and I'm trying to add background music to the speech, so I clicked the Add Music button and added a .MP3, then clicked the "Text to Speech" button, but don't hear any background music. I even played around with the Volume level amounts. Maybe adding music is just for if you make a video with it only.

        Does anyone know how to do it?
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    @ GRF

    If I understand correctly you want to use an audio file that has both the TTS voice and background music combined. This software does not create an audio only file that has both of the music and voice so you will need to use a third party software like the free version of Any Video Converter.

    What you will need to do is render the video in Jimmy's software that has both the the music and the voice, and then use Any Video Converter to "convert" that video file to an audio only file which is quick and quite easy to do.

    I tried this and it worked fine but the background music I used was longer than the TTS audio so Jimmy's software automatically faded the music at the end of the video.

    AVC is a tool I use a lot and it works relatively well. If you install AVC make sure you don't install any additional junk that may be offered on the install.

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    After playing around with this program and TTS Spin Blaster Pro, TTS Spin Blaster Pro is light years ahead of TTS Video Studio in terms of ease of use and features. The one thing the have in common is has the voice of John in TTS Spin Blaster Pro which sounds more robotic than the other voices in TTS Video Studio.

    I just wish TTS Spin Blaster Pro has the other voices like Giselle but they can't be added at this time. The only thing TTS Video Studio is really good for is the voices.
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    Does anyone know how to contact Jimmy Mancini? I applied via JVZoo to be an affiliate of TTS Video Studio but it's been in the "Pending" state for days.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author GRF
    Does anyone know how to sign up for an affiliate link other than going to JVZoo?

    I want to promote TSS Video Studio and even sent a personal message to Jimmy Mancini to become an affiliate, but still no reply.
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    I applied via JVZoo and was approved and I have also contacted him through Facebook. I doubt very much that he is approving everyone that applies, so maybe he has overlooked some folks that do not have a proven track record. He promoted my current stock image pack, and he made a good number of sales, so he knew who I was when I applied and he could see that I had a track record selling on the Zoo.

    If you have a proven track record then maybe you should try contacting him through support or Facebook.

    Best of luck.

    Cheers

    -don
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    • Profile picture of the author aistores01
      Has anyone used TTS Video Studio for adding audio to products such as Easy Sketch Pro and Video Maker FX, and how well did it work?

      I am really interested in buying TTS-VS, but before I do, I wanted some input on combining it with ESP or VMFX.
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    A separate audio file is created ---> as you see in this post I have imported it into another software.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/internet...ml#post9428325

    Cheers

    -don
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    Originally Posted by al spaulding View Post

    That doesn't sound bad at all.
    Actually, that was made with one of the voices I already own. Here is a quick demo I just did of one of the voices included in TTS Video Studio.


    Cheers

    -don
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    • Profile picture of the author jdharr
      I have CrazyTalk Pro as well... I was testing out the highly paid voices on it... one vendor wanted over $1000 for a yearly license deal of only 300 videos or so on one voice! Their voices were almost super real though which are used in high tech explainer videos by corporation trainings and doctors.
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  • Profile picture of the author Action Man
    Hi, to all.

    I have studied this discussion as I bought the program recently.

    I mainly bought it for the voice TTS thing, as I can produce video with voiceover legally (I think) and then edit the whole thing in Camtasia, and the voice in Audacity.

    In that respect the purchase meets my needs--and the voices are not too tinny, and can be made to sound very proffesional with post editing in other programs.

    I had to buy the Pro Plus version after buying the Pro Version.

    It did not dawn on me that with the pro version you can only produce 5 video projects.

    I personally think that is bad practice, sorry--selling a pro video creator that only produces 5 videos? I think you should just sell one version, the pro plus, my 2 shillings.

    regards

    Jim
    Signature

    "Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache" (Mae West)

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    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Action Man View Post

      I had to buy the Pro Plus version after buying the Pro Version.
      It did not dawn on me that with the pro version you can only produce 5 video projects.
      I personally think that is bad practice, sorry--selling a pro video creator that only produces 5 videos?
      Hello,

      With TTS Video Studio (Jimmy's latest TTS software) you can create as many videos as you like, but with the basic version you can only have 5 projects going in the software at any one time. In the pro version you can have 10 projects going at any given time, and with the Pro Plus version you can have an unlimited number of projects going at the same time.

      Cheers

      -don
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  • Profile picture of the author gigsisa
    [DELETED]
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