Internet connection required?

[jbarr]

I purchased and installed the David voice, and am VERY happy with it, but I do have one question. Why does using the voice require an Internet connection? Let me clarify...

When I use any application that uses the Cepstral David voice, I have to have an open Internet connection, and there is Internet traffic while it is speaking. When I stop Internet traffic using Zone Alarm, the voice stops speaking. When I use the Microsoft Sam voice, it is unaffected by the state of the Internet connection. (Of course, it sounds like garbage!)

Anyway, just what is the Cepstral David voice doing? What traffic is it passing? Does this requirement for an INternet connection mean that I cannot use the Cepstral David voice in the car or on a plane when I have no Internet connection? Are there any privacy concerns?

I do not recall seeing any requiements for an Internet connection in the SYstem Requirements.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

-Jim

[MultiPort]

Jbarr,

Allow me clear the air because this is a very common misconception about Cepstral's product.

Yes, Cepstral's licensing server does use the TCP/IP stack...however, it is local and NOT Internet traffic. Windows assumes that TCP = external Internet traffic.

It is totally safe to unblock Cepstral voice's in your firewall settings. The product does NOT make calls back to any remote servers or such.

[jbarr]

Wow! You read my mind!

Coincidentally, I just discovered this today. As you indicated, my Comodo firewall software shows that when the Cepstral David voice is invoked, the Cepstral license server tries to access local address 127.0.0.1 on port 1480. As you specified, this is a local address, not an Internet address.

It just seemed annoying, that's all.

Thanks for a great product!

[Tom55]

I'm very happy with it too!

[AdamW]

Follow up from Cepstral:
To put this post to rest in case anyone finds it. The issue was that Cepstral licensing under Version 4.x used a socket, causing all the symptoms described above. This has been rewritten to avoid all that for version 5.


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[dieter]

Let me add that in my case SwiftTalker is trying to establish a connection (probably 127.0.0.1, don't know) when you hit the Play button the first time, but if you don't allow the access, then there will be a timeout of a half a minute or so, where it refuses to speak. After that it works normally. So you may have to wait a little when you're unplugged or so.