Text-to-Speech files appearing in Downloads folder?
July 20, 2023 12:00 AM
I've noticed that when generating TTS files and/or VTT text to go with it, a copy of the file appears in my Downloads folder in addition to the "media" folder for the course. Where are these files coming from? I thought I was generating this information solely within the authoring tool itself.
Note: I did check my browser's "downloads" tab and did not see anything there, so I'm wondering if Lectora is just copying the file to the Downloads folder for some weird reason.
Since Lectora generates a new file is generated even when editing a TTS file, it seems like unnecessary duplication to have to delete multiple copies of a file from multiple locations.
Discussion (6)
So my question is: Why are text-to-speech files appearing in my computer's Downloads folder?
Hello, Lectora's Text to Speech is using the powerful Amazon Polly service. Files are sent to Polly and then downloaded from Amazon Polly. So, that's why the files are created as part of the process.
The question ( as you stated) is
Why are text-to-speech files appearing in my computer's Downloads folder?
I checked Lectora versions 21, and 19. Both versions are doing this, so it's been a "feature" for years.
If you want, I can submit a feature request to the Developers to see if they can change the process to not leave files in the Download folder and just have the files stored inside your project's folder. However, as downloading is involved, it might be something they can't change.
Thanks for the question.
Thanks for your response. Does Lectora use the AWS US East/West servers for Amazon Polly?
That's something you should prominently disclose. My own employer would be reluctant to send any potentially-confidential information to an Amazon server, since we do not have an NDA in place with Amazon.
That's what I was thinking.
I'd hate to have to resort to conventional narration, even though it's more time-consuming.
It would be nice to have text-to-speech reside solely inside the application.
I guess sending those files to the Downloads folder might be the only way people will know the files are being sent outside the authoring tool... but most people probably won't notice.
Update: If Lectora uses Amazon Polly from the AWS US East/West servers, this might not be as big of an issue as I initially thought, because AWS US East/West does have FEDRAMP authorization from multiple government agencies. FedRAMP Marketplace