Version 1.0.31 has just been posted, and will download automatically for existing users. This version adds support for Amazon Polly text to speech voices.
Similar to the Google Cloud Text To Speech feature added 1 month ago, this allows users to sign up on the AWS site for an account, and allows a free usage quite of characters per month (1 million of their "Neural" high quality voice rendering, and 5 million of their "Standard" rendering, fior the first 12 months).
Both Neural and Standard voices are a marked improvement over the built in Windows Text To Speech voices.
Note: AWS signup requires you to enter your credit card / billing information, even if you never exceed the free quota. Users are reponsible for their own charges if they exceed the free quota.
To assist you with usage awareness, EDCoPilot will count the characters used for either voice type, and warn you at 50%, 75% and 95% of the free quote used. The counts are displayed during EDCoPilot startup or via the voice command "Amazon counts".
Additionally, EDCoPilot will cache all the rendered speech, and replay that speech instead of re-submitting to Amazon, to further save on the used count.
If users sign up for both Google and Amazon services, it is easy to switch between them on the Voice Settings panel, or via voice commands. Another way to avoid any overage charges!
