FSX-MS My take on voice activated checklists

[portanav 12]

Hi Paul;

Thanks for this great software. However, I have a few questions. I have a male voice for the checklist reader, however at the end of every checklist reading a female voice responds "checklist complete" instead of the male voice. This also happens with one particular checklist item "hydraulic panel" instead of being read by the male voice it is female. Any ideas what is causing this?

Is there any way to change the voice of the checklist reader? Can I select "listen" automatically when I run the program without having to go to the sub-menu?

Thanks,

Michael.

[The Proff 0]

Hi Paul. Firstly I'd like to add my compliments on your software. I've used a combination of your editor and notepad to create my own checklist - for the Vulcan B2! This is based on the Iris model, using their checklists and adapting them where necessary. I'm not sure that I 've quite understood which indicators are referred to for the fuel panel checks - there seems to be some crossover between the centre console fuel panel and the starboard refuelling panel. Anyway, could you let me know where best to post the checklist for general use?

I had a few issues in getting your software to work, as I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and it started minimising the FSX window every time I tried to use it. Switching the GUI off didn't help, and as I found in searching the web this is a problem inherent in Windows. However the workaround of running FSX in a maximised window stopped the minimising problem, and also meant I could use the checklists to the full.

Picking up on your initial comments about the Windows default voice, I installed the free Microsoft speech engine 11 and downloaded many of the 32 bit English voices. Initially I couldn't find them in control panel - another Windows 7 feature - but after more web searching I found that both the engine and SDK need to be installed, and then the registry entries need changing to be able to see them, after which they could be selected as the default voice. After all that, I found that, for me, the American ZiraPro is very clear and quite natural, closely followed by the English Hazel. Neither of them stumble over the technical terms, and by careful use of hyphens I could get a pause into the checklist items.

I think the Vulcan checklists need a little more work, but are reasonably useful now. I'll start work on a few more and post them when they are ready.

By the way, I noticed in your video the frame rate stuttered a bit, as mine did. After some advice at the 2015 Flight Sim show I invested in a GeForce GTX 960 video card. So far flying is now silky smooth, apart from some issues specifically with a payware Typhoon - I'll deal with that when I've got five minutes!

Once again, my thanks for a useful piece of software, which certainly enhances the flying experience!

 

Best Regards,

Dave Millett

[SouthPawPaul 11]

I'm glad that folks are still enjoying this software after all this time. I've not touched flight sims for a while now due to other life commitments so I've not been enjoying it myself.

 

A great chap called reached out to me in September last year as he'd gone to the great trouble of creating and hosting a website dedicated to this software. As my current repository (Google Code) is due to go offline in the not too distant future then this website will be the best place to host your files.

 

http://simvoicechecklists.com/

 

You can contact him through the website.

 

Let me know if you have trouble contacting him via this method.

[kevinfirth 1,394]

Thanks Paul, I'm still using your app, and I wasnt aware of the website til just now. I'll send over the other checklists I did for myself for A2A a/c. Hope you're ok and you find time for some simming soon- thanks again from me for your work Cheers K

[vc10man 732]

Hi Paul. Firstly I'd like to add my compliments on your software. I've used a combination of your editor and notepad to create my own checklist - for the Vulcan B2! This is based on the Iris model, using their checklists and adapting them where necessary. I'm not sure that I 've quite understood which indicators are referred to for the fuel panel checks - there seems to be some crossover between the centre console fuel panel and the starboard refuelling panel. Anyway, could you let me know where best to post the checklist for general use?

I had a few issues in getting your software to work, as I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and it started minimising the FSX window every time I tried to use it. Switching the GUI off didn't help, and as I found in searching the web this is a problem inherent in Windows. However the workaround of running FSX in a maximised window stopped the minimising problem, and also meant I could use the checklists to the full.

Picking up on your initial comments about the Windows default voice, I installed the free Microsoft speech engine 11 and downloaded many of the 32 bit English voices. Initially I couldn't find them in control panel - another Windows 7 feature - but after more web searching I found that both the engine and SDK need to be installed, and then the registry entries need changing to be able to see them, after which they could be selected as the default voice. After all that, I found that, for me, the American ZiraPro is very clear and quite natural, closely followed by the English Hazel. Neither of them stumble over the technical terms, and by careful use of hyphens I could get a pause into the checklist items.

I think the Vulcan checklists need a little more work, but are reasonably useful now. I'll start work on a few more and post them when they are ready.

By the way, I noticed in your video the frame rate stuttered a bit, as mine did. After some advice at the 2015 Flight Sim show I invested in a GeForce GTX 960 video card. So far flying is now silky smooth, apart from some issues specifically with a payware Typhoon - I'll deal with that when I've got five minutes!

Once again, my thanks for a useful piece of software, which certainly enhances the flying experience!

 

Best Regards,

Dave Millett

Aaah, pure bliss. Nostalgia for the Vulcan B2.I note you got the Iris Simulations product. Recently Iris Simulations had one one sale, at £9.99 but I baulked at making the buy as I had read a bad review somewhere about that particular Iris Simulations product?

 

Just downloaded this. How does it install into the sim, FSX-SE, in my case?

[SouthPawPaul 11]

I'm unsure what you're asking. Are you asking how the B2 installs into the sim or the Voice Activated Checklists?

 

If it's the latter then it doesn't. It's an external tool to the sim.

[vc10man 732]

It's the latter, Paul. So, how would I bring up that checklist, in say the A2A X172 or Cherokee that I have. I've seen the opening video,and it's great.

[SouthPawPaul 11]

There are a number of videos on my now polluted Youtube channel (thanks to my 10yo).

 

This video pretty much walk you right through it's capabilities and should be considered a basic "how-to"

 

[The Proff 0]

VC10man, I downloaded the Iris version of the Vulcan while it was on special offer. It has a few quirks, such as always loading with the engines off and the cockpit dark. There is a set procedure to go through for starting the engines, but when you get the knack it can be quite quick. There is a fast start option, or you can use the air bleeds from engine 1 to the others to do your own fast start. Either way, if you save a flight while still in the air give yourself about 20,000ft height to get the plane flyable before it hits the ground - you even have to turn on the control surface motors and all the necessary fuel tanks! Mine then began losing the master power, and the switch had no effect. I found a solution by re-creating that flight from scratch, and then re-saving it. Soon after Iris let me have a patch for it, and I haven't seen this problem again.

The Vulcan is heavily overpowered, and so the flight dynamics do model what I understand is the correct behaviour - leave the throttles at 100% after take-off and shortly the plane takes a dive. You again need enough height to idle the engines and slow the aircraft before you can recover form this. Another quirk is that the autopilot heading hold doesn't directly switch on, you need to select HDG in the radio stack window as well, though the course hold does work straight away. I've not tried all the others yet - I'm still enjoying landing by hand.

Overall I enjoy flying this machine, and have a number of flights saved with it in different parts of the world.

[vc10man 732]

leave the throttles at 100% after take-off and shortly the plane takes a dive.

I found that out when I bought a Just Flight version for FS2004 and ever since never went near another one.

 

 

Another quirk is that the autopilot heading hold doesn't directly switch on, you need to select HDG in the radio stack window as well, though the course hold does work straight away

That was another quirk that put me off, and although I saw it on sale quite cheaply at Iris' own site, I baulked after reading the poor Review I got via Google.

 

Thanks for the feedback, nevertheless.

[portanav 12]

Hi Paul;

 

I have been using your great software for about one year, and I am really happy with it. My sim is a full walk-in B738 simulator running on P3D and Prosim737. I have written a full Boeing 2005 revised checklist that I use with SimVoice in the sim.

 

I would like to make one suggestion, that is; whenever you update SimVoice you consider adding a volume control slider to SimVoice in the settings. That way it would be possible to control the volume from SimVoice independent of other audio software.

 

Thanks again for the great software.

[bassgojoe 1]

Hello! I'd love to get a copy of this program. But since google code is dead, they don't have any of the downloads for the program. I was able to recover the google code svn repository and upload it to github here:

 

https://github.com/joevenzon/voice-activated-checklists

 

However, I'm unable to build the program, mainly because the ChecklistList.*.cs files are missing (there are also some other minor files like the ico missing, but that's not super important). Any chance you could update the git repo with the missing files? Alternatively, can I get a copy of the latest exe from someone? Feel free to PM.

[SouthPawPaul 11]

This project is no longer maintained by me.

 

I've uploaded a zip file of the complete source archive to my Google Drive. https://goo.gl/dGwwNP

Please feel free to downloaded it and upload what you need to the GitHub repository.

 

The application can be downloaded from here https://goo.gl/AWUAoK and the sample A2A C172 checklist and example audio files can be downloaded here https://goo.gl/yQ74e7

[bassgojoe 1]

Thank you for the quick response!

 

I take it you don't mind if I pick up the torch on this project?

[SouthPawPaul 11]

Please feel free. It's not the prettiest code