# Jaws 14, Opinions and Thoughts?

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by hardyboy09 (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Sunday, 11-Nov-2012 14:25:56

Hi, all.
As I was investigating Jaws 14, I noticed that FS now offers new synthesized voices. These are the same thing as we have always had access to.
They are supposed to be better quality. Why would you want to download a 204 MB file per voice? Why is eloquence fading away? It is still the best I believe.
Anyway, how are these synths performing in comparison with RealSpeak? What about Windows 8 with Jaws? Has anyone been brave enough to give Windows 8 a test drive?
Nathan.

## Post 2 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 12-Nov-2012 3:35:47

They are different voices if i remember right.
personally, i've found that elaquence sounds the most natural. I also like Dave the new voice that comes with narator on Windows 8, though I haven't heard him read long things, just a podcast some while back.
I know i couldn't get Dave for XP though.

## Post 3 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Monday, 12-Nov-2012 13:59:55

People stick with Eloquence because it's the most responsive, but if a voice that sounds more natural were to ever exist that would respond as well as Eloquence does, I would switch in a heartbeat. With that said, I did try the Real Speak voices for Jaws when they were new, in version 10 I think that was, but besides the fact there was usually about a 5-second delay between pressing a key and hearing what was said, it was actually somewhat jarring not to hear Eloquence speak for Jaws. I guess I'll always associate the two as being one and the same.

## Post 4 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Monday, 12-Nov-2012 14:54:59

I can say these new vocalizers are as responsive as the Eloquence and a lot more pleasant to live with. The key is they are as responsive, which yes that is important.

## Post 5 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Monday, 12-Nov-2012 18:38:09

I may have to try them out, in that case. Which one would you recommend?

## Post 6 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 12-Nov-2012 22:50:57

Try 'em all and se which one you like the sound of.

## Post 7 by hardyboy09 (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Tuesday, 13-Nov-2012 0:30:58

Hm, what else is worthy in Jaws 14. I'd love to hear some feedback on Win 8?

## Post 8 by forereel (Just posting.) on Tuesday, 13-Nov-2012 17:45:28

If you go to www.freedomscientific.com you can read all the changes and add ons for Jaws 14. I personally have not tried the new voices, and that is because I like it as is, but might. I do like the way it works with Outlook, and Microsoft Office better then 13. I also like the feature for IE that alows you to customize a web page to start at the point you want.
Most new computers have plenty hard drive space, so bigger files seem no problem at all.
On Windows 8 I'll be using it period after tomorrow, so will say what I think. I'll also contimue to use Windows 7 on my laptop, but Windows 8 will run on my desktop, so I will have no choice but to learn.
If you don't have it install the demo and use it 40 minutes with all the features and that will help you greatly.

## Post 9 by starfly (99956) on Wednesday, 14-Nov-2012 13:32:56

Jaws 14 with the new voices seem to work less sluggish on my net book when mudding if that gives you any indication how well the new voices work.

## Post 10 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Wednesday, 14-Nov-2012 14:36:41

I tried a couple of the new voices. I'm liking them so far, but they don't seem to handle punctuation too well, particularly question and exclamation marks. But they certainly are as responsive as Eloquence, so that just might be an annoyance I can get used to.

## Post 11 by hardyboy09 (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Wednesday, 14-Nov-2012 23:57:46

That was the problem before. Punctuation was not being spoken by the realspeak voices. Will try it, thanks.

## Post 12 by forereel (Just posting.) on Thursday, 15-Nov-2012 20:51:51

Change the main setting on that.
Now as far as windows 8 Jaws does well. There are a few things it does but can't read.
For example, when starting the computer a question comes up about the safety scan and you are ask yes or no, but you can't see why. Lol
I like it.

## Post 13 by Brooke (I just keep on posting!) on Friday, 16-Nov-2012 19:38:25

I never thought I could get used to a voice other than Eloquence, especially because of the lag that existed with the RealSpeak voices. But I've been running Vocalizer Samantha for about a month, and I'm completely comfortable with the change now that I've gotten used to it. And, as others have said, these voices are now as responsive as Eloquence.

## Post 14 by synthesizer101 (I just keep on posting!) on Friday, 23-Nov-2012 22:19:44

Now, to help everyone, or a lot of people, out. Here is the difference between RealSpeakSolo and Vocalizer.
Once upon a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was this Belgian company named Lernout and Hauspie. They made speech software, but had some financial problems. Their software portfolio contained RealSpeakSolo, version 3.0. These voices were not high quality, and included some of the most annoying of the new RealSpeak voices, including Jennifer for U.S. English.
Well, as we said, Lernout and Hauspie had some money troubles. They broke some pretty important laws with their finances and went out of business, but not before selling their software to ScanSoft. In a few years, ScanSoft, being a large company, decided it was time to confuse the customers by renaming themselves to Nuance Communications.
Around this time, RealSpeak was updated to version 4.0. This includes some new voices that weren’t present in 3.0. Well, RealSpeak worked really well on the computer, but their footprint was about ninety megabytes. Nuance had gotten some deals together with some automobile manufacturers, and they needed something with a much lower processor and disk space footprint.
Up to the plate came vocalizer, which even today is called “vocalizer for automotive” or “vauto”. These voices were some of the original realSpeak voices, taken down a notch. It was currently a separate product: RealSpeakSolo for the computers, Vocalizer for the embedded systems. But then Nuance began to think things through a second time, and they realized there was a better decision to make.
They began development on a new version of the speech engine, which would be called vocalizer. This would be 5.0, and it would have voices for all levels. A compact for embedded and fast-running system, a standard which was closest to RealSpeak, and a premium that would have extraordinary quality. While at it, they would fix realSpeak’s faults.
Fault number 1: RealSpeak had some truly detestable voices. They included Jennifer for U.S. English, Nanna for Danish and Isabel for Castilian Spanish. The new vocalizer 5.0 would leave those in the dust in which they belonged. The new Vocalizer product would only contain those RealSpeak voices that sounded relatively human.
Fault number 2: RealSpeak didn’t support many languages. In Western Europe, pretty much everything was covered. But in Eastern Europe and Asia, things were definitely lacking. Let’s fix that! In Vocalizer, the following languages were added:
Slovak
Romanian
Hungarian
Arabic
Indonesian
Thai
Fault number 3: the hideous voices required replacement. Yes, some were good. However, there were places for new voices, and there will be voices to fix them. An entire list of voices replaced would be pointless, but leave it at this. Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Chinese, and Korean received new voices. English received a South African accent to complement the six other accents it had previously had (United States, United Kingdom, India, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia. Finally, all of the languages except Japanese received lifts in quality.
Unveiling the vocalizer product started a stream of adoptions. IOS was quick on the trigger, using it for VoiceOver. Then Mac OSX, Supernova, android, NVDA, and JAWS were given drivers for the new voices. This is not to mention the many embedded systems now running Vocalizer. And thus, the speech synthesis lesson is over. Collect your things.

## Post 15 by basket (knowledge is power) on Tuesday, 27-Nov-2012 12:43:44

To the original poster, elequance is not being phazed out. this was address by the August and September FS cast.
And I have to disagree, although vocalizer is more responsive than realspeak direct, it is still not as responsive as elequance. i still use elequance for most of my applications and only use vocalizer for reading long texts.

## Post 16 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 28-Nov-2012 1:16:12

Elaquence is not being updated anymore, but FS continues to put it in there products.

## Post 17 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Wednesday, 28-Nov-2012 13:23:17

So, aside from the voices, what is jfw14 like?

## Post 18 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 28-Nov-2012 14:26:19

flexable web is an interesting Idea (I've tried it), but dont use it.
past that i dont see much inproovement for what i do use.

## Post 19 by basket (knowledge is power) on Wednesday, 28-Nov-2012 15:39:58

a ton, jaws has really stepped it up on skim reading, and has amde it easier to find inconsistencies. if you want the full list and a demonstration of how they work, I suggest you check out FS cast from either August or September.

## Post 20 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Wednesday, 28-Nov-2012 17:01:04

I personally think Flexible Web is a great idea. It really cuts down on the clutter you have to wade through just to read a newspaper article, for instance. It's usually news sites that are full of unnecessary clutter like that, although there are other culprits that are just as bad, like WikiHow. Combined with the option to suppress all page refreshes, reading these kinds of sites has now become a tolerable experience.

## Post 21 by forereel (Just posting.) on Thursday, 29-Nov-2012 12:35:07

I guess to say what Jaws 14 is like depends on what you do with it.
I find it pretty good, but not bullet proff.
It allows you to use Windows 8 with little fuss, and is cross platform still XP, Vista, Windows 7, so good.
If I am using for example iTunes with Windows 8 and I use a keystroke to add a folder to my library, Jaws stops working for some reason, so I unload it and reload it then I'm moving on easy. If I don't use that key stroke and arrow to the option Jaws stays put. Odd, yes.
Now if I'm in Outlook 2010 it works beautifully for that program better then 13 in terms of handling things.
It is for the most part stable, and I would say more stable with Windows 7 then 8.
The voices allow for customization. That allows people to have some choices to what they like to hear, and that is a good thing.
The braille support has also been improved.
Its a good program, and contimues to allow use to use the latest stuff, so nice.
That is my personal take on what it is like.

## Post 22 by Lord Raven (Newborn Zoner) on Thursday, 24-Jan-2013 19:06:24

Nice lesson on the voices.
But, a few things are confusing.
Why the hell is every developer getting their own customised Vocalizer distribution?
Why does it look like no company in the world is selling SAPI versions of the voices?
If I have JAWS 14 and NVDA on the same computer, I have to install every voice I want twice.
For NVDA you need to buy the voices, same for Window Eyes 8.x, but in any cases, no SAPI versions.
With RealSpeak 4.x you could legally get SAPI versions.
And the last question, where is Kyoko?
I know she wasn't dropped in the transition between RealSpeak and Vocalizer. However you can't get her for JAWS at the moment and for NVDA you only get the compact version.