TTS Speech Doctor Pro - Correct your GPS speech language by yourself

I loaded the previous Speech Doctor, and changed some abbreviations, my favorite one, though, is I changed "recalculating" to "Darn it, Larry, next time listen to me" Drives my wife crazy.

I also went to http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php and created some unique wav files. Since my next project is every cemetery in Missouri, now when I am riding with friends, every time we come within 1/4 mile of a cemetery, they laugh when they hear, "Larry, there are some dead people ahead" I know, it's kind of macabre. My sick sense of humor.

Turbo, you keep amazing us... *thumbs up*

Hi alleghany,

The SpeechDoctorPro is not the same as TTSVoiceEditor which you used to change "recalculating". The new one is used to change abbreviations which are not pronounced correctly by your GPS.

For example, you could change "St." to "Saint".

Nice touch. I went with "Ok, your way, Master" for my replacement to recalculating & it also evoked a crisis with my spousal unit.

Fred

Lets see if I understand this program.

I live in the state of Washington. Abbrev. WA

Karen, the Australian English, voice calls WA - Western Australia.

If I use this program and put in WA and across from this Washington, she will then pronounce the abbrev. WA as Washington.

Is this correct?

Chuck

Yes, this is it, but there is a catch.

With the previous Speech Doctor, I could remove the previous word/abbreviation association and it was sure to work.

With the Speech Doctor Pro, the existing abbreviations stays, except the ones you change. So if the Washington/WA abbreviation is before the Western Australia/WA one, it will work. Otherwise you will continue to hear Western Autralia.

Short answer: try it. It will not take you long to see if it works.

alleghany,
Laughed out loud when I read your post. My wife loved the dead people line. LOL

Miss POI
There comes a time when the light bulb badge just isn't enough anymore. Turbocc just isn't the typical hobbyist software writer, he is a very prolific software writer for our community.
Turbocc spends many hours disassembling testing and observing the internal structure of the sacred and once secret Garmin OS and it's file structures. Until him we got what Garmin gave us and nothing more, his software stands above everyone in this field and should carry a special badge recognizing his talents.

Many have written POI editors and POi files once they know field structure lengths that where released by garmin. However Turbocc's dissecting of the OS and support files is the greatest thing that has happened to us Garmin users since the beginning of the hobby and garmin.

MaryAnn, Please Create a Badge for this talented prolific Garmin sofware writer, without him we would only hear what Garmin Says we are to hear rather than what we the the Garmin user wants to hear.

Seconded

third,fourth, and fifth that

very valuable person to the Factory!!

Turbo exemplifies the best in forum contributors. You have my vote for Contributor of the Year. Thanks for all your work.

I agree with BobDee, Turbocc is one that stands out more than anyone else for helping this site. And that is not said to belittle anyone else for all the work they do. He still has my vote for COW of the year.

He will have a tree at the end of the year;) Turbocc is a huge asset to this community and is one of my pics for Contributor of the Year.

Any suggestions on icons for making him stand out above the crowd software designer wise?

Miss POI

You could give him a GOLD STAR now.

Most of us have stars, it just wouldn't stand out enough. Lets put some thought into this because Turbo deserves something special!. we have sometime, how about some ideas tossed into the ring, then whittled down to a few, then a poll to pick a winner for that special badge. I have yet to see the polling option of Drupal used, a good opportunity to shake it down.

Give us the requirements and we could possibly have a contest to create a new badge never before seen.

Wow, thank you!!!!!!!!!!

I love the software - especially no install required. So great.

sounds like a lot of work >.>

Turbo, once again you outdid yourself! Thanks!

Is there a way with Pro to change State Road to Route ?

How about an inaugural 'turbo' award named in his honor - a possible icon is a fan-type turbo engine....just thinking out loud....

His work is so good and so valuable, how about giving him a direct link on the home page for each of his programs and a misc contact/praise/thank you menu so that he stands out and is easily recognized for providing software for Garmin that works.

I look forward to every new release of his software but dread every new release of Garmin's software. He deserves our kudos.

After a long discussion with Jon and some extra input from some other users, I have decided to leave the icons as they are.

If I start making individual icons for everyone then I won't be focused on my priorities and then others might not feel as special.

I have to be careful about playing favorites. I adore you all.

Turbocc knows how special he is to us and we all know how special we are to him.

Miss POI

Thank you to all that suggested there should be a special badge for me. I appreciate your gesture. It really shows me you like what I do.

Still, I understand Miss POI's position and there are other great contributors on this site. I already won 2 COW awards and I am deeply grateful. Also, one more badge would have put too much pressure on me. You know, I do this on my free (and night!) time, but there may be a point where I will decide it is time to move on to something else. I hope you would not be too disappointed when this time comes.

Anyways. I have still some big challenges ahead of me in the GPS area. I just released the TTS Speech Doctor Pro, but I may be retire it for something much more cool.

Choice #1: a full text editor for all existing abbreviations (instead of just a subset like Doctor Pro). The bug so far is that I need to de-compile the VPM file on-the-fly. As for the TTSVoiceEditor, some garbage lines may still be shown, but it won't matter as long as you do not change them.

Choice #2: a fully user programmable area where you can create your own abbreviations without being limited by the string lengths. Some tests need to be done, but I plan to modify the existing software code and write new code as you type new abbreviations. That could be interesting. Hopefully, if your abbreviations are the first in line, yours will be processed before existing ones. This will allow you to "change" existing ones.

In both cases, it seems that some new GPS firmware ignore some of the abbreviation tables. I need to find the ones that won't be ignored or a way to let you do some tests to find the right ones by yourselves.

Stay tuned!

Turbo

Well, you could try this:

On the left side, put "Route " as the long name and "State Road " as the short name.

You may have to do more than one line because "State Road" is also seen as "SR" in the maps.

1- Remember to always have a space character after each associations (long names + short names).

2- Sometimes, a space is also required before each abbreviations otherwise it will replace all words ending by "sr " by "State roadsr ".

Here's what I suggest. Add these 2 abbreviations:

" Route ", " State road "
" Route ", " SR "

and maybe

" Route ", " State Road "

This stuff is case sensitive!

Let me know.

I don't mind my 855 saying QEW, that's what most of us call it anyway. However, I would like it to say "Highway" instead of "HWY".

Ok. Then long, short names:

" Highway ", " HWY "
" Highway ", " HwY "
" Highway ", " HWy "
" Highway ", " Hwy "

These are the most common forms of HWY you can find.

Thank you, will try it.

Update. I tried but I kept getting a "Corrupted file" error. Will try again.

OK.
1. Opened nuvi folder Garmin/voice/...Emily
2. Copied it to my computer c:/ garmin/... Emily
3. Opened it with Speech Doctor Pro.
4. Made changes, as you suggested.
5. The displayed form gave abbreviations for streets, lane, etc. I put my changes in the 0 lane, 0 ave, 0 street rows.
6. Saved file.
7 Notice "patch was completed successfully".
8 Tried to reopen file to ensure I had not made an error.
9. Notice came up "File corrupted"

Hi Not2Bright,

1- What produced the message "File corrupted"? The nuvi or the program?

2- What was the version of Emily VPM as reported by the program?

3- Is your GPS a 855?

4- Have you ever used TTSVoiceEditor? Did it work? Did you ever get a similar message?

Here's my first hypothesis: your GPS is checking the CRC of the VPM compared to .SUM file in the voice directory. You could try to rename the emily.sum to emily.sum1 so the GPS will ignore it. This could solve the issue.

Turbo

The program.
The bottom half of the table contained apparently random characters. I couldn't scroll to the top to see if my changes were still there.

1.9

Yes

Yes, modified recalculating etc.
No similar message.
Everything worked well.

Edit: Note that I did not copy the file back to the GPS. I was checking the file on my C: drive.

Do not copy it back to the GPS yet. If TTS Speech Doctor Pro complains about the file, there is surely an explanation.

Edit: I was able to reproduce the problem. I am shifted by 16 bytes. Something I did for test. Sorry. Will post new version a bit later.

I wasn't going to attempt to.

Ok, I posted a v1.01 of the TTS Speech Doctor Pro. I corrected a problem causing the file to appear "corrupted". All is fine now.

Thanks, will try it tonight. Must get the nuvi out of the car.

Used the new V1.01, no problem found.

Loaded Highway changes into the nuvi. Can't say whether "Emily" will respond correctly until I try her tomorrow.
Thanks

The nuvi 855 reloaded with no problem.

Voice program still worked OK

Only problem - Emily still said "HWY" instead of "highway".
The Banner Line on the screen showing the next turn displays HwY-401. HwY is entered as a short form.

I have now enterd HwY- as a short form, perhaps Emily will recognize it.

Hi Not2Bright,

Yes, this is why I suggested a couple abbreviations in an earlier post. Those abbreviations are case sensitive. HwY is one of the usual abbreviations and it differs from HWY.

I had already entered HyW, but Emily did not use it. That's why I have now added a "-" the short form, making HwY-.

Perhaps...TTS Speech Doctor Lite.

It could just do the "Recalculating" [Change To] function only and automatically. It would be the killer ap.

Hi jombl2,

It seems to me people are getting confused between the programs. Do not worry, you are not the only one.

"TTSVoiceEditor" is the one to use to increase the GPS volume or edit regular prompts like "Recalculating". It is very easy to use. This is the one you should be using.

"TTS Speech Doctor Pro" should be used to modify the way some abbreviations are pronounced. Those abbreviations are coming from the maps and not from the GPS. This is why there are so many inconsistencies. For example, sometimes "Dr" could be "Doctor" or "Drive". The Speech Doctor allows you to force it to one or another.

If the Doctor Pro is too complicated, stick with the "TTS_Speech_Doctor". You can't add new abbreviations, but you can use the ones available.

Turbo

Alas I used 1.01 and loaded various forms of Hwy and HwY-.
No problems except that Emily steadfastly refuses to say "highway". Perhaps I should change to Daniel, he may be more amenable

Hi Not2Bright,

I see you tried "HwY-". Did you try "HwY " ? I guess so, but small differences could be important.

Can you tell me where you are hearing this. Give me a start location and a direction so I can repeat the issue. Then, I will be able to make some tests for myself and see how it goes. I do not have a 866 and I do not have the latest 760 fw, but it should help anyways.

Now, you know why I stopped updating the original Doctor. Too much work. LOL! In this case, it should work and it bugs me it doesn't.

Turbo

Thank you for the software

Tried all case versions of "Hwy". However, since the banner line says HwY-401, I only tried "Hwy-". I didn't try the "-" with any other case variation.

No, I did not try "HwY ", (HwY{space}).
I have not tried the space with any case combination.

I have been running the tests at the intersection of the Hwy 401 and Westney Rd in Ajax, Ontario. I have run the tests both North and Southbound on Westney Rd. In all cases I have set a destination that takes me westbound on the 401.

Highway abbreviations do not have a '-' in the VPM files. The display is sometimes different from what is sent to the TTS processor. The letters are generally good. so if you say HwY, this is something definitively to take into account. However, I would certainly try without the '-'.

About the spaces:

Most abbreviations have a space before and after the abbreviations. If you do not do that, you could be replacing something in the middle of a word. For example, the association between "East" and "E" would convert "left" info "lEasteft". This would not happen with " East " and " E ".

For some reasons, there is sometimes only a space at the end of the word like in the default table. So, keep at least the ending space. If you see problems with other word, just add a space at the beginning of each expression.

Thank you I will try this fix and post results.

Didn't work!
Now to try space before and after.
Then, if necessary, just the space before.

Sometimes I feel that Emily is really Eliza and I'm Prof. Higgins.

When making a change using any of Turbo's programs you save the original copy of the voice file (in a safe place).
After saving this copy can you work directly with the vpm file in the device. That is, open the file in your device, make the changes you want and save as the original name directly in your gps. Are there some issues with this?.

Thanks! turboccc