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Guest JTEK99

Yet another new FS9 Utility: RealATIS (SkyTalkTeam)

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Guest JTEK99

I always browse Simmarket for the latest addons/utilities for FS.This one really caught my eye:http://secure.simmarket.com/product_info.p...roducts_id=2160RealATIS, huh? $23.00 and I'm wondering... hmmmm... will I *really* use this thing? I already have ActiveSky6 which has its own ATIS broadcasting system on 122.0 (Com2). Doesn't have all the bells/whistles of this new utility but still pretty convenient as long as you've loaded a flightplan into it (that way it will tell you weather info at the arrival airport).The thing I like about the FS9 default ATIS is that it tells which landing/departing runways are in use. I know, I know. I can tell this with the wind report and a basic airport chart; but I still find it nice since I don't have to reach for anything when approaching an unfamiliar airport.If anyone picks this up, I'd be interested in a mini-review. I noticed you can control which voices do the announcing (maybe it comes with some Lernout/Hauspie voices... at least one shows in the screenshots).

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Guest JTEK99

Hmmm...Just noticed one un-cool thing about it:Requires registered version of FSUIPC.Not a problem for me since I've had my registered version for eons; but I know that will muck up some who haven't as of yet given alms to Mr. Dowson.Just FYI.

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Hi fellow flightsimmers,Well I bought it installed it, configured it and it's a load of crap. It makes use of the MS Speech engine and it's incomprehensible mumbling. So I inmidiatly deleted and took my loss :-erksDon't buy it! My simple advice, put your money in something like Aerosofts airport services (if you like flying the german airports)All the best!RobPS Did I hear somewhere that FSD is working on a Piper Saratoga?


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Hello fellow flightsimmers,I concur ..... an absolute pile of doogy doodoo!do NOT waste your money like I did!!

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Guest JTEK99

>Well I bought it installed it, configured it and it's a load>of crap. It makes use of the MS Speech engine and it's>incomprehensible mumbling. So I inmidiatly deleted and took my>loss :-erksRob:Insane!! That bad, huh? I was literally on the cusp of pressing the Purchase button when I got this reply alert.Just dashed off an e-mail regarding some questions; totally glad for your thoughts. Thanks a bunch. Now let's see if they reply to my inquiries.(And you're right... AES looks very cool.)

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Hi,You know it would have been acceptable if the voices were of better quality. I heard somewere on the FS message boards that you can actually buy digital voices which are cristal clear. I don't have Wraps but someone should make a video with the sound of those driveling and stuttering voices..oh my god!!And I totally forgot about ASv6 ATIS services. Aren't there ATIS services on the internet somewhere to listen to, just like you can hear ATC on the net?Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"


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Guest JTEK99

>You know it would have been acceptable if the voices were of>better quality. I heard somewere on the FS message boards that>you can actually buy digital voices which are cristal clear. I>don't have Wraps but someone should make a video with the>sound of those driveling and stuttering voices..oh my god!!Rob:Yeah, I can imagine the default MS Speech voices being used. In a word, they suck, it's true.Now that you mention it, though, I *do* use third-party digital voices for the MS Speech Engine (specifically, two AT&T Natural Voices as well as two NeoSpeech voices...the latter are super clear). I use them for some other things, but I've really learned to enjoy them in combo with LeftSeatSimulations' LD767 CoPilot, a voice-control utility for the aircraft. Thus, my virtual co-pilot sounds pretty da*n good.So... let me ask you this: assuming the voices weren't an issue, does the RealATIS package offer anything cool at all?Here are the questions I sent to the RealATIS support e-mail address:-----------------------------(1) Does RealATIS have the ability to construct a custom message which includes the active landing/departing runways for a given airport in its database? (The FS9 default ATIS does this) (2) Selection from several languages or voices: are these voice files included with the RealATIS purchase? (3) Since I would assume that RealATIS uses the Microsoft Speech Engine, can you use any other voice packs that are compatible? For instance, I have a few AT&T Natural Voice sets as well as some from NeoSpeech. Can I use those? (4) Framerates: in all seriousness, does RealATIS impact framerates in the simulation? (This is my most important question.) (5) After configuring RealATIS, do you have to keep the "application" or some other program running as a background process? In other words, does it require another application running IN ADDITION TO Flight Simulator 9 while in the simulation? (6) Is there any conflict with any third-party custom weather engines such as ActiveSky 6.x? (7) Can RealATIS be used on another PC via Pete Dowson's WideFS?----------------------Some of the questions may seem overly pedantic, but hey... I want to know these things! I'd be interested if you had any brief answers to the above, just to compare to any response the developer responds with (if at all).Once again, thanks for the feedback. You have likely saved me 23 buckaroos. :)

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Well apart from the awful voices ...I set it up on my FS9 laptop.EGLL and EGKK are default on my laptop.the configuration manager reckoned that EGKK had def ATIS already and EGLL did not......in fact it is the other way around!I loaded up AS6 real weather ...the default ATIS detected a change in the weather ..the RealATIS did not!This program really is the worst addon I have ever bought!

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(edited for my lousy English)Okay...let's try to answer your questions..So... let me ask you this: assuming the voices weren't an issue, does the RealATIS package offer anything cool at all?Yep ATIS with another flavor and additional options to be set like runway/braking conditions, transition level notification, weather at specified height, bird strike warning (ear candy?) etc(1) Does RealATIS have the ability to construct a custom message which includes the active landing/departing runways for a given airport in its database? (The FS9 default ATIS does this) It does mention which runways are in use. And you can customize the ATIS messages with NOTAMS, specifying units of measurements and the like.(2) Selection from several languages or voices: are these voice files included with the RealATIS purchase? Yep Russian and English L&H voices are being installed, but I had also some truvoice stuff and the developer mentions that other local accent voices are planned to be added later based upon user feedback, so i guess that somehow your Cristal clear voices could be used (I hope so) because those L&H voices are the worst I ever heard..:)(3) Since I would assume that RealATIS uses the Microsoft Speech Engine, can you use any other voice packs that are compatible? For instance, I have a few AT&T Natural Voice sets as well as some from NeoSpeech. Can I use those? See above.(4) Framerates: in all seriousness, does RealATIS impact framerates in the simulation? (This is my most important question.) I did not notice any framerate hit. I tested it with the FSD Piper Navajo at KSEA with fair weather and full AI.(5) After configuring RealATIS, do you have to keep the "application" or some other program running as a background process? In other words, does it require another application running IN ADDITION TO Flight Simulator 9 while in the simulation? It installs a invisible gauge to user selected aircraft and when used in the sim (ie when dialing ATIS on the comms) a service called ATISserver.exe is executed with 00 CPU and about 2.7 MB memory use on my system.(6) Is there any conflict with any third-party custom weather engines such as ActiveSky 6.x? Don't know but why should it? ASv6 uses a default frequency I believe for ATIS. With this program you can configure the frequency to your own liking. The manual states that it works in accordance with ACv6 with the refresh AI function.(7) Can RealATIS be used on another PC via Pete Dowson'sWideFS?It's not mentioned in the manual, so I really don't know.Mmmm..not a bad program after all, only those voices....;) but I guess if you can make the MS Speech engine use your custom voices, you can make RealATIS use your custom voices?! Hope this helps!Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"


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And did you hear anything from the developers?Okay...let's try to answer your questions..So... let me ask you this: assuming the voices weren't an issue, does the RealATIS package offer anything cool at all?Yep ATIS with another flavor and additional options to be set like runway/braking conditions, transition level notification, weather at specified height, bird strike warning (ear candy?) etc(1) Does RealATIS have the ability to construct a custom message which includes the active landing/departing runways for a given airport in its database? (The FS9 default ATIS does this) It does mention which runways are in use. And you can customize the ATIS messages with NOTAMS, specifying units of measurements and the like.(2) Selection from several languages or voices: are these voice files included with the RealATIS purchase? Yep Russian and English L&H voices are being installed, but I had also some truvoice stuff and the developer mentions that other local accent voices are planned to be added later based upon user feedback, so i guess that somehow your Cristal clear voices could be used (I hope so) because those L&H voices are the worst I ever heard.. (3) Since I would assume that RealATIS uses the Microsoft Speech Engine, can you use any other voice packs that are compatible? For instance, I have a few AT&T Natural Voice sets as well as some from NeoSpeech. Can I use those? See above.(4) Framerates: in all seriousness, does RealATIS impact framerates in the simulation? (This is my most important question.) I did not notice any framerate hit. I tested it with the FSD Piper Navajo at KSEA with fair weather and full AI.(5) After configuring RealATIS, do you have to keep the "application" or some other program running as a background process? In other words, does it require another application running IN ADDITION TO Flight Simulator 9 while in the simulation? It installs a invisible gauge to user selected aircraft and when used in the sim (ie when dialing ATIS on the comms) a service called ATISserver.exe is executed with 00 CPU and about 2.7 MB memory use on my system.(6) Is there any conflict with any third-party custom weather engines such as ActiveSky 6.x? Don't know but why should it? ASv6 uses a default frequency I believe for ATIS. With this program you can configure the frequency to your own liking. The manual states that it works in accordance with ACv6 with the refresh AI function.(7) Can RealATIS be used on another PC via Pete Dowson'sWideFS?It's not mentioned in the manual, so I really don't know.Mmmm..not a bad program after all, only those voices.... but I guess if you can make the MS Speech engine use your custom voices, you can make RealATIS use your custom voices?! Hope this helps!Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries "To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"


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Guest JTEK99

>And did you hear anything from the developers?Rob:Yes, I did, just an hour ago. Here, once again, are my questions to the SkyTalkTeam (STT) along with their answers:-----------------------(1) Does RealATIS have the ability to construct a custom message which includes the active landing/departing runways for a given airport in its database? (The FS9 default ATIS does this) STT: Yes, it does. Actually, Real ATIS defines the active RW according to "against the wind" criteria, but you can exclude, for example, non-satisfied runways using configuration manager.-----------------------(2) Selection from several languages or voices: are these voice files included with the RealATIS purchase? STT: Real ATIS uses free Lernout & Houspie Voices. For now there are 2 languages (English and Russian) and near 10 voices are included into setup package just for simplify the installation process. Sure, you can install your own voices for these languages and they will be available for Real ATIS.Next step in our development will be "language packs" redistribution, i.e. the updates which will replace Russian in Real ATIS environment with another requested native language (Spanish, German, French etc.)-----------------------(3) Since I would assume that RealATIS uses the Microsoft Speech Engine, can you use any other voice packs that are compatible? For instance, I have a few AT&T Natural Voice sets as well as some from NeoSpeech. Can I use those?STT: See the answer above.-----------------------(4) Framerates: in all seriousness, does RealATIS impact framerates in the simulation? (This is my most important question.) STT: During our beta tests we did't see the decrease of FPS. But, according to our experience, some (especially "hand-made") aircraft models can stuck the Real ATIS, because of wrong using of MSFS events in these models. But we can say that the most popular models such as Level-D, PMDG, Project Tupolev and all default aircrafts work fine. -----------------------(5) After configuring RealATIS, do you have to keep the "application" or some other program running as a background process? In other words, does it require another application running IN ADDITION TO Flight Simulator 9 while in the simulation? STT: Real ATIS consists of the gauge itself and "server" executable which starts automatically and keeps alive during your flight if you driving a plane, where Real ATIS gauge is installed.-----------------------(6) Is there any conflict with any third-party custom weather engines such as ActiveSky 6.x? STT: Our tests have been performed using AS 6 environment. There are no conflicts detected.-----------------------(7) Can RealATIS be used on another PC via Pete Dowson's WideFS? STT: We did't check this configuration during our tests.-----------------------Not the most spectacular answers as some is still not totally clear, but between the developer and your own posts, I've got a much clearer picture than before.What's your take on their answers?

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I took the trouble already answering your questions :) See the post above your's. To be honest, looking at the answers I could well be one of the developers LOL ;)What I'm interested in did you manage to make your voicesets work with RealATIS?All the best!Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"


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