How to use Text-to-speech on the C510 / C530

while this is an interesting technical adventure it is far too risky. I sincerely doubt Garmin will bail out anyone who tries this stunt. I thank you for your efforts but I think if I ever want TTS I will just shell out the extra $$$ for a C550 and sell or give away my C530

Regards, Ted

I really don't need that feature that bad.

Plus it's only temporary

Like everybody else, I was skeptical about this hack, and since it was only temporarily, didn't think it was worth the risk.

Well now the guy has posted additional (very simple) instructions to make the hack permanent. I tried it last night, and it works.

http://geepeeex.googlepages.com/text2speech

Now my C530 is saying street names & numbers, and even announcing my destination by name. Since TTS is the only feature that made me jealous of the C550, I'm pretty excited by this development!

I've power-cycled the unit numerous times since the hack, and it retains the TTS functionality. I even powered it down last night, turned it on first thing this morning, and I've still got TTS.

Hack at your own risk, but this was very easy to do. Honestly, for me the scariest part was erasing the foreign language voices in order to make room for the TTS voice. Since lots of C530 users erase those voices anyway... I'd say this hack is doable for anybody.

Hi Guys, I am new here. I have the C530. Do any of you know if it's possible to change the voices? Are there any sites with user created "driving instructions"? I would love to change things like "recalculating" to "you missed your turn you idiot" and so on. Have any of you heard about this possiblility?

I don't think you can record your own voices. The unit seems to have it's own format, and it isn't like there's a file for "Recalculating" or any other commonly uttered phrase that's easily identifiable.

If you do the TTS mod, as described in this thread, then you do have the choice of a male or female voice, which is more options than the C530 gives you normally.

Over at http://pocketgpsworld.com, you'll find a discussion thread and a program to do just that! ... Apparently, the 'normal' voices are just .WAV files assembled into one container. A guy (Ash10) has written a program to dismantle the container and re-assemble it afterwards. Obviously, while it's dismantled, you can meddle with the individual .WAV files. Replacing "Recalculating" with just silence, has certainly been done.

The Text-to-Speech voices are a different kettle of fish though. They appear to contain the actual speech engine as well as the voice - I think they're conceptually like a .DLL

Thanks for the info. I will have to try that out. Now I have to decide wether I want TTS or change the voice prompts. I take it that with Ash10's hack I will be able to record my own voice and replace the one in the system.
Thanks,

What files did you have to remove before installing the TTS? was it fairly straight forward or somewhat complicated to do? I know myself around computers but I am by far a whiz. Will I be able to do this myself?
thanks,

I followed Phil's TTS mod directions, and it was very easy. The only files I removed were the foreign language voices. Lots of C530 users erase those voices to make room for POI's, so removing them to make room for the TTS mod is no different.

If you're enough of a whiz that you can plug your C530 into your computer with a USB cable, you can do the TTS mod. I don't know why any C530 user wouldn't do it. I've had TTS on my C530 all week, and can't imagine going back.

Yes - but don't under-estimate how big a job that would be. There are something like 116 separate .WAV files in there. To do the whole lot and get the inflexions and nuances consistent across the whole lot is probably quite difficult.

Let us know how you get on!

[quote=m20b25
If you're enough of a whiz that you can plug your C530 into your computer with a USB cable, you can do the TTS mod. I don't know why any C530 user wouldn't do it. I've had TTS on my C530 all week, and can't imagine going back.

Humm.. Wonder if I record my Wife voices telling me the directions to go.. Na, then I wouldnt listen and still get lost.. (lol)

hummmm.. That reminds me a of joke I heard from Bill Cosby when he was on Jay Leno..

Ok, so today I tried this mod and it worked awesome. I even had room for my custom POIs. I took it out and it worked beautifully. However, I didn't (thank god) experience any of the "What can go wrong" issues that the author described. I also didn't have to load any 320 drivers either. I don't like Jill's voice as much as the standard voice, not quite as clear. However, it was able to pronounce the majority of the roads correctly, just sounded a bit "Computerized" Sorta like my phone when it repeats the person's name that I am trying to call.

I dont really have a problem with looking at the screen and seeing the name of the road

I agree that the TTS voice is much less human than the standard C530 voice, which is understandable considering that a stock C530 has only a handful of phrases, while a TTS enabled unit can literally say anything, including the name of your destination.

It's a small price to pay, however. I never realized how much I looked at my screen until I got TTS and found myself driving all over town without even glancing at it.

Oh God, I love it!!!!! You are right, I don't take my eyes off the road at all (except for those few times where I can't understand it).

There really isn't any risk. The c550 shares the same firmwire. I believe that all the problems came from NOT putting it in the Garmin mode (in other words, leaving in the 'mass storage disk' mode). You are just adding the tts files and telling Garmin to use it.

Has anyone tried the other instructions located here:
http://garminc510.tts.googlepages.com/home

Looks pretty similar maybe even a little easier.

Easier? Nothing could have been easier that what the original author stated. There are like 5 steps and no hexcoding...

1) Backup
2) Put 5xx into "Garmin mode" vs "mass storage device" mode (I believe this is where ppl get into trouble, because they don't do this part)(You don't need the 340 driver by the way, at least I didn't)
3) Install the voice
4) Copy the voice, paste it, and rename it to 000.NEW
5) Copy the original sum file, paste it, and rename it to "English_American_Jill.sum"
It takes all of 5 minutes. I didn't run into any problems then or since then. I have had it like this for about a week now.

I hear that the voice to tell you to turn comes too late is this true?

No, that is not true. It doesn't delay anymore then the standard non-TTS voice. I have been extremely happy with it. I have noticed that the volume of the TTS voice is lower then the non-TTS voice. That, and the voice is a bit more 'computerized' is the only things that I have noticed that I didn't particular like.

Claudio's instructions are better in that you don't need to invoke the undocumented 'Garmin USB GPS' mode. You do however, need to be able to use a Hex editor. Use whichever method (if either!), you feel comfortable with.

Incidentally, there is a demo of all the voices at
http://www.nuance.com/realspeak/languages/

This is the web-site of the people who make the Speech Engine that Garmin use. NOTE: Not all the available voices are used by Garmin.

Also, if you are unhappy with the volume or rate of a TTS voice and are happy with a Hex editor...you can make one or two modifications, by finding the string <voice_volume>80<</voice_volume> and changing the number. (The 80 is just an example of a starting value).

The rate at which the voice speaks is found at <voice_rate>xx</voice_rate>

Make these changes to the xxx.NEW file and optionally , re-copy it to xxx.VPM

Cool, thanks!!!!! For the volume, how high can you go? 100? as in 100%?

Because you're just overwriting what's already there (which is two digits), the values are 00 - 99.

I highlighted the bits that you can change.
(Search for the phrase "START" to locate this section of the voice file)

START
<voice_name>daniel</voice_name>
<lang_name>british english</lang_name>
<screen_name>British English-Daniel (TTS)</screen_name>
<med_screen_name>British English-Daniel</med_screen_name>
<sml_screen_name>Brit Engl-Daniel</sml_screen_name><tny_screen_name>Daniel</tny_screen_name>
<voice_volume>80</voice_volume>
<start_addr>0x00000000</start_addr>
<part_nmbr>006-D0525-00</part_nmbr>
<ver_nmbr>1.10</ver_nmbr>
<dll_file>English_British_Daniel.vpm</dll_file>
<vol_name>daniel</vol_name>
<voice_rate>50</voice_rate>
<lang_enum>14</lang_enum>
<dll_chksum>0x098A134B</dll_chksum>
<gender>Male</gender>
<build_info>DWW 10-12-06 15:00</build_info>
END


I just gave Karen a tweak - she should be louder now when I'm playing MP3s.

An unconfirmed report from Germany, says that the recently released V5.5.0 firmware stop this from working.

I wouldn't know for sure - I've not dared upgrade

Can’t you back up the gps files by making a disk image (.iso) or backing up the whole unit onto the computer? Just incase the unit stops working correctly?

If your GPSr can be seen by your PC as a "drive", then you can back the whole thing up by copying the whole GARMIN drive to your hard drive.

What version are you using that still works ?

Does version 5.4.0 still work ?

yes, 5.4 works. That is what I have

I wish my Streetpilot i3 did that. I have to hang with the big boys for that kind of performance.

OK, so i did the volume mod. Man, it was too loud. I had to back it down a bit (didn't want to blow the speakers...lol).

Thanks!

trying to do the mod, for some reason when I plug in the 530 the computer autodetects, but when I try to do the TTS mod, the computer does tells me that no unit is attached? also, when I when I click on the Gstart it tells me that no unit is attached? I don't have anyproblem using wedupdater or POI loader. I am using firmware 5.50? thanks for your help...

So does it show up in Device Manager, under "Garmin Devices", as a "Garmin USB GPS"?

If it's appearing as a disk drive, then it probably wasn't on the diagnostics screen, when it was connected.

Try stopping GStart (I forgot about that thing - I told it to go away 3 months ago ;-)

Try the alternate instructions on Claudio Erhinger's page.

You will need to downgrade to V5.4.0 or earlier firmware. Garmin have stopped this working in V5.5.0

for some reson the 530 is not recognized sa a GPS but as a general volume storage device in device manager? also, is there a link to older firmware?

What is GStart?

Is this confirmed???!!!!!

I think I will hold off too. My c530 is still under warranty. Plus, someone mentioned the max. volume is lower with TTS. I use my c530 on my motorcycle and I want all the volune I can get.

It's a launcher 'thingy' that detects that you've connected the GPS and asks you what you'd like to do. I'll bet you could achieve the same effect, with an Autorun.inf file - I feel another project coming on :-)

Certainly appears so - I don't think you should be surprised!

This will upset 'version junkies' - but personally, I'm considering heading right back to V4.0.0 - (didn't do the auto-zooming (which is good feature), but neither did it keep getting stuck in 'map mode' (which is a bad feature!))

But that one's been solved! (see a few posts above this one)

Try http://www.gpsinformation.org/perry/streetpilot/c5x0/

Do you mean 5.4 or 4.0? Cause won't you also loose the DST update? or do you really care?

EDIT: BTW, I am not surprised about the TTS mod not working on 5.5, but am disappointed...lol.

Damn, got my c510 couple days ago, upgraded straight away to firmware 5.5 and now can't use this TTS. Anyone know a way of returning the firmware version to an earlier one? I know I can do it on my PSP!

Yeah there is a website that motorcycle mamma posted in a recent post. Do a search, cause I can't remember.

Maybe this should be in the FAQs.

http://gpsinformation.org/perry

what hex editor are you using and can you explain the steps to increase the volume of the voices?

After you hack it to have TTS, will TTS be automatically disabled if you update the firmware?

I am not sure if anyone knows, the ppl that have done it (I know for sure myself) havent tried to update the firmware since we did the TTS in fear that it may get disabled as you described. So far, there hasn't been any updates that I really cared about.

Garmin moved very fast to plug the hole - at a guess because the TTS technology is licenced from a 3rd party.

I just used this procedure on my Nuvi 770. The problem I had was that the Bluetooth sound was significantly louder than the traffic voice to the point where Bluetooth was not usable due to distortions.

I backed up all files from the Nuvi to my PC (this took about 50 minutes) and then copied an additional copy of the VPM file to my desktop. I used the Hex editor to change the voice_volume value from 65 to 80. Jill certainly sounds a lot louder, and I was able to reduce the master volume from 90 to 70. I think this will significantly reduce the Bluetooth volume, I'll try that tomorrow. It may need some more fine tuning, but it looks (and sounds) like the problem is solved.

F

So I am joining this discussion pretty late in the game but I just recently got my c530 and went to the link provided. I went through the whole process and I was unable to get it to work. I just recently updated my maps to the 2009 ones. I did not know if this would mess it up or not. I didn't know if anyone could help?

Just in case anyone comes across this on a search engine like I did; this may help out.

c530 edited files just like above directions without a hitch until the system was reset.

The TTS voice file would not be available upon reload. Oddly enough the c530 would rename the 000.new file to another file/extension and cause issues.

Made the 000.new file read only and re-uploaded it. Problem solved and the TTS worked flawlessly.

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/TTSVoiceEditor works great to edit Jill for content as well as volume.