PRO-ATC after recent patches

[Bobsk8 12,730]

25 minutes ago, J van E said:

The vocabulary has changed with this version. In previous versions numbers were pronounced differently or in various ways but now everyone is saying those numbers in the same way and saying 'decimal' has become the standard now. It seems (unfortunately) most existing voices don't have the word 'decimal' available so they all use that specific word from one voice set which does have it. Doesn't sound too good indeed.

It's a bit disappointing that the voices of ProATC seem to lag behind with the progress of the addon. A real PRO addon would have come with updated and complete voices.

If it wasn't for volunteers ( I was one), making new voices for PATC, there wouldn't be any new ones  at all. Some of the default voices are not very good in my opinion. . 

[Pete Dowson 558]

2 hours ago, newtie said:

Where do you get the additional voices?

Various place sell them.  There are some answers on the Pilot2ATC support forum. I think mine are mostly Ivona and Nuance, but purchased from harposoftware.com.  You can get packages of 4 or 6 or even 12, but I mostly chose individual ones after listening carefully.

I was mainly after clarity of speech. I wanted some overseas accents but many of them were rather too thick and I found them hard to understand. Maybe when I get more into Pilot2ATC and know what to expect to hear that won't be a problem.

Currently it isn't really worth getting more than 12 as you assign one per ATC function. I'm hoping Dave, the author, moves this on as promised so that he chooses more at random from a bunch of voices for each, and then ultimately chooses according to region too. THEN it might be worth while collecting a larger library -- over a period of course. At those prices they aren't something you want to buy a large bunch of in one go!

Pete

 

[Bobsk8 12,730]

26 minutes ago, Pete Dowson said:

Various place sell them.  There are some answers on the Pilot2ATC support forum. I think mine are mostly Ivona and Nuance, but purchased from harposoftware.com.  You can get packages of 4 or 6 or even 12, but I mostly chose individual ones after listening carefully.

I was mainly after clarity of speech. I wanted some overseas accents but many of them were rather too thick and I found them hard to understand. Maybe when I get more into Pilot2ATC and know what to expect to hear that won't be a problem.

Currently it isn't really worth getting more than 12 as you assign one per ATC function. I'm hoping Dave, the author, moves this on as promised so that he chooses more at random from a bunch of voices for each, and then ultimately chooses according to region too. THEN it might be worth while collecting a larger library -- over a period of course. At those prices they aren't something you want to buy a large bunch of in one go!

Pete

 

Wow, 10 voices about $300+. I have PF3 with 140 voices included. 

[Pete Dowson 558]

8 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Wow, 10 voices about $300+. I have PF3 with 140 voices included. 

Yes pre-recorded ones with the same problems of stitching bits together to cope with all the different names, frequencies, numbers and so on. same as Radar Contact and ProATC/X of course but just more volunteered recordings.

Synthesised voices are very good these days. Take the likes of Amazon's Alexa, The Google equivalent (whatever his/her name is) or even MS's Siri, for instance. Much more natural. There are some free ones but they are less natural. And $300+ is really a very small proportion of what my cockpit investment has amounted to!

Pete

 

 

 

[simbol 5,819]

1 hour ago, Pete Dowson said:

Yes pre-recorded ones with the same problems of stitching bits together to cope with all the different names, frequencies, numbers and so on. same as Radar Contact and ProATC/X of course but just more volunteered recordings.

Synthesised voices are very good these days. Take the likes of Amazon's Alexa, The Google equivalent (whatever his/her name is) or even MS's Siri, for instance. Much more natural. There are some free ones but they are less natural. And $300+ is really a very small proportion of what my cockpit investment has amounted to!

Pete

 

 

 

Hi Pete,

You got me interested in exploring Pilot2ATC, do you have any videos or resources available to check this software functionality with the voices you are mentioning?

Regards,
S.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, simbol said:

Hi Pete,

You got me interested in exploring Pilot2ATC, do you have any videos or resources available to check this software functionality with the voices you are mentioning?

Regards,
S.

Maybe look for video's of Pilot2ATC that use those voices for the best impression? Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOWAK_omTog

I myself don't like that interface on screen all the time: I like how ProATC shows almost nothing unless you want or need it. As with everything else flightsim related the perfect ATC addon doesn't exist yet. 😉

 

[simbol 5,819]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

Maybe look for video's of Pilot2ATC that use those voices for the best impression? Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOWAK_omTog

I myself don't like that interface on screen all the time: I like how ProATC shows almost nothing unless you want or need it. As with everything else flightsim related the perfect ATC addon doesn't exist yet. 😉

 

Thanks that is what I wanted to have some reference to look the program, I agree with your comments about the interface as this was the reason I brought ProAtcX.

Just a silly question, can you just leave the interface minimised and interact with ATC forgetting about all the map, etc.?

Regards,
S.

[Pete Dowson 558]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

You got me interested in exploring Pilot2ATC, do you have any videos or resources available to check this software functionality with the voices you are mentioning?

Sorry, no. There are videos on the Pilot2ATC website, in the Tutorials section (http://pilot2atc.com/Tutorials). Not sure what voices those are using, maybe just default MS.

You can listen to samples of the "upmarket" voices before you purchase, and (I think) even type in stuff for them to say.

1 hour ago, J van E said:

I myself don't like that interface on screen all the time:

I run Pilot2ATC on a separate PC, with WideFS. If you have no Network then you can reduce the P2A display quite considerably (there's a button to switch between your miniaturised one and the full one). Or, better, you can simply hide the screen altogether.

Since it is all voice controlled you never need to refer to its screen once you've connected and filed your plan. That's really the whole point! The functions you need are either voiced or controlled (like PTT) via assignable buttons or shortcuts. "SayIt" is one such function, which gets the PC to reply for you when you haven't got the copilot set to do it.

I can't even see the PC running my copy when I'm in the cockpit. Whilst i'm still learning,  in case I miss anything in the Clearance or Taxi instructions, I have a small display inside the cockpit which shows the "Conversation ext" the bottom right Window in P2A itself). That's displayed through new facilities in the latest Wideclient cooperating with a suite of Lua plug-ins also provided with it.

The same screen shows menus and messages which programs put up on the P3D screen, most of which are switched off there by a P3D4 option. It also shows the ASP4 weather data for the planned route, in an abbreviated form but useful for entering wid data into the CDU).

One of the advantages of synthesised voices is that you can slow them down or speed them up without them really changing, still sounding natural. So things you really need to extract data from (like Clearance) can be played slower.

Pete

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by Pete Dowson

[Pete Dowson 558]

3 minutes ago, simbol said:

Just a silly question, can you just leave the interface minimised and interact with ATC forgetting about all the map, etc.?

Yes, you don't need it at all once the plan is filed. See my preceding message.

Pete

 

[simbol 5,819]

2 minutes ago, Pete Dowson said:

Yes, you don't need it at all once the plan is filed. See my preceding message.

Pete

 

Many thanks for your time to respond.

Regards,
S.

[Bobsk8 12,730]

I have a small 16 " LCD monitor that I use for PF3, PlanG moving map and Pro ATC. I keep the ATC on all the time on that monitor  and it doesn't interfere with my Sim and I don't have to run a network with a second PC. 

[Matthew James de Bohun 55]

It's reasonable enough and works well most of the time. The only issues I have are that some of the chatter profiles I created seem active in areas where I did not set them to be. ie hearing Budapest ATC chatter in America!!

Oh and despite the latest update that poor guy in Swiss air still keeps on diverting to Marseille!!! 😄

[DrumsArt 270]

3 hours ago, simbol said:

Hi Pete,

You got me interested in exploring Pilot2ATC, do you have any videos or resources available to check this software functionality with the voices you are mentioning?

Regards,
S.

You have just one there (short flight), it's Xplane but P2Atc is the same with P3Dv4 :

 

Regards,

[Pete Dowson 558]

Of course you can also try Pilot2ATC for a free trial period. As it says on the website (purchase page)

Quote

The trial version of Pilot2ATC gives you access to the full product for 10 days. Before purchasing a license, download the trial and be sure it performs to your satisfaction in your environment.

That is what i did.

Pete

 

[Bobsk8 12,730]

1 minute ago, Pete Dowson said:

Of course you can also try Pilot2ATC for a free trial period. As it says on the website (purchase page)

That is what i did.

Pete

 

I tried the demo a couple of years ago and had problems with the CPU usage impacting my FPS in P3D. I reported in on the forum, and later I read some others were having a similar issue. Probably if I had a network in my home, I could have solved this issue, but frankly I have used and bought just about every ATC program there is, and never felt like I needed to run a network to run them. Later on , I read that something had been done about the high CPU usage, so I tried to get the demo again to see if the issue was fixed, but the free demo option went away apparently once you have tried it once. So now I go back and forth between PATC and PF3. Lately, I have been spending all my time with PF3, and have really gotten to like it. Little things like clearing you to taxi across an active runway, which PATC doesn't do, make it feel more realistic to me. Flight planning isn't an issue, because I use Simbrief anyway, and with the new Simbrief downloader, it installs the FP into the aircraft I fly with one click. Then I can load it into Plan G for the moving map, and PF3. Simbrief also suggested Sids and Stars which is a plus, and it's free.