JD et al,I too waited a long time for RC4 and I must admit, I am a bit disapointed in the vioces as well. Not the quality mind you, but the speed at which the phrases are assembled and spoken. It almost sounds like RC4 is running on a low priority instead of normal.One thing that has crossed my mind when reading this entire thread, I rather like FS9's fluid delivery of speech. I also used EditVoicePack to speed up the FS9 speech even further so when I'm in a high-density AI area, there's a whole bunch of fast speech being spoken rather quickly. I wonder how many other folks did this as well over the past year or two and are now so used to its speed, that RC4 just sounds rediculisly slow. I do hope you can speed up the RC4 voices.BTW, with the recent AVSIM survey, what was the total number of partipcants using broadband? I can't find it at the moment, but I bet it was 25 to 50%, maybe. Therefor, I too think you should rethink your publishing and get out of the past. I know you probably don't want to spend profits on a publisher like Flight1 or backside-servers, but high-speed is here and it's expected by this community now-and-days.Al

good points. if it was faster, people would want slower. not all the users are americans, and can understand american speech. it's a balancing act.yes broadband is here. i have a couple of leads. but it took over 6 weeks to work out details with the current setup, test the setup, make sure it works. and that shows. people are receiving there orders in switzerland as we speak.stay tuned. we're not sitting on our behinds, we're working on a number of fronts. all of us.jd

>good points. if it was faster, people would want slower. not>all the users are americans, and can understand american>speech. it's a balancing act.Good point as well, that statement reminded me of when I was a boy, my best friend's parents were born and raised in Liverpool England. It took me years to fully understand their accent. Especially when we got into trouble and they were yelling at us, LOL.>stay tuned. we're not sitting on our behinds, we're working on>a number of fronts. all of us.>>jdNothing to the contrary ever crossed my mind. I've been enjoying Radar Contact since the early days of version 2. Your reputation precedes you, Sir!Al

I think that woman controllers in general do a better job than males- they somehow seem more organized (aren't they always? :) ).On the accents- I have listened to the demos and would have the question- is it possible to fly in the US and have American voices, and still have enough variety in different voices so that the same voice doesn't re-appear too much on different controller sectors? Maybe this has been already answered, although a quick look at this thread didn't show that. I'll also check the RC forum below.What I find interesting is- voices aside- RC4 appears to be able to throw enough "unexpected" commands at you to make it a good r/w trainer for low-time IFR pilots like me. We train like robots to fly by reference to instruments alone (for good reason), and FS does support this training well. But there's nothing in the stock ATC in FS that comes anywhere near preparing one for the unexpected ATC stuff- and when your IFR, ATC expects rapid responses to situations that the pilot could hardly expect were coming.Thanks- Bruce.

<>Roger that! I am not aware of any program even close to what you have created. BEST WISHES!Jim

yes, you can enable american controllers/pilots for american flights, and disable the non americanvice versa for european/international flightsjd

Thanks JD.Bruce.

Hi,The CD customs declaration is valued at US$1 and as such will not be subject to UK (and I believe EU) customs levies which I believe start at GBP

>Bob,>>Don't use the videos as a basis for determining if all the>voices need speeding up. With the complete set there are some>who speak fast enough and some who are quite laid-back. That's>human beings for you - always being different to robots! ;-)>>Once you have got airborne and are enjoying all that RC4>offers you'll soon adapt to the voices and all this discussion>will become a distant memory.>>Cheers,Well, I just got my Amex Card out and hopefully, it will be on the way soon :)

Hi Bob,Good for you! I know you had your reservations about the voices but once you get immersed into the program you'll grow used to them very quickly.Welcome on board!Cheers,

Hi Phil,<>Those are probably people who have used the default ATC and are accustomed to the sounds of those voices. As I've explained elsewhere it's totally beyond the resources of the Radar Contact team to do what Microsoft did to create those 8 voice sets.It's a pity they may not discover the depth of realism that RC4 offers and have to put up with the excellent voices but flawed procedures of the default ATC. Real as it gets? For many aspects of flying, yes, but certainly not the ATC.Cheers,

Hi Ray,>It's a pity they may not discover the depth of realism that>RC4 offers and have to put up with the excellent voices but>flawed procedures of the default ATC. Real as it gets? For>many aspects of flying, yes, but certainly not the ATC.Not me. I'm waiting for the postman to deliver mine! The point I was making is that the demo is the shop window, and, if too many are put off by what they hear that means a smaller pool for potential add-on voice sets in the future, as well as less resources for the RC team to try to improve the voice sets.The voice sets may become less of an issue once I start using RC4, heck, I may even begin to feel that there's no problem with them and wonder what all the fuss was about. :-lol I don't know if a playable demo of some sort is possible (probably not given the size of the voice sets), but that may give a better feel for the progam in use.Earlier in the thread I asked if the RC voice sets were recorded as individual words, rather than sentences with a "tot" place marker as used by MS. If not, it might be something to consider for the future, along with some sort of automated processing program (as Lars has also mentioned in the RC4 forum thread).It must have been a mammoth task getting the voice sets ready and now be a bit of a letdown to hear any unfavourable comments. Don't let the comments fool you, the effort is much appreciated. I suppose I'd better give thanks to everyone that has donated their time to make, and process, the voice sets, as I'm sure once I get RC loaded I doubt I'll have much time to leave MS FS and visit here. ;-)phil http://www.ireiwa.com/images/lostpicprod.gif

Hi Phil,<>Clever chap! Good judgement call :-)<>We only used less than half of the volunteer sets because of quality issues and we'll need to be quite strict about future quality control. As for the RC Team processing them it was me, Dean and Rick and all of us work full-time so imagine how the last few months have been :-(<< I may even begin to feel that there's no problem with them and wonder what all the fuss was about. :-lol >>You know, you might just be right. ;-)<>The idea of a fixed flight - say KSFO-KLAX might have been a possibility but we didn't discuss that. It's worth thinking about though.<>They were recorded as individual words for the most part but there are some longer phrases. I didn't know about Microsoft's technique until yesterday. That's interesting and food for thought.<>It did because this was my first time processing the files. I thought I'd done quite a decent job and felt as though I'd let the team down when I read the number of negative responses. But, with praise from people like yourself and from the RC team I've started to believe I did a pretty good job with the resources at my disposal. Thanks Phil :-)Cheers,

now that radar contact has actually arrived in hundreds of locations throughout the united states and the rest of the world, we can have a little feedback on their first impressions, and their second and their third.i think actual experiences are going to tell us more, than a 8 minute demo.jd

>i think actual experiences are going to tell us more, than a 8>minute demo.That'll let you know what users think, it won't let you know how many didn't end up buying it, or why. You only have to read this thread to see that there's a perceived problem with the voices in the videos. My suggestion for a possible demo was to enable potential users to see how good the program can be compared to the default ATC by actually using it, rather than passively watching a video. I was just trying to look from the side of a potential customer making a decision on whether to purchase or not. However as a purchaser of RC4, I'm pleased to see that you seem to be looking at the problem from a perspective of RC4.1 or RC5. ;-)phil http://www.ireiwa.com/images/lostpicprod.gif