TTS vs SAPI5 voices (Inova and CereProc)

[argee 0]

I’m not familiar with the distinctions between voice formats, and I want to make sure that I’m looking for products that are compatible with Pilot2ATC. 

It looks like Ivona has both TTS (TextAloud4) and SAPI5 voices. The TTS voices are sold in bundles, but the SAPI5 ones are sold as individual voices (I’m looking at American English). 

For CereProc, I can’t be certain but it looks like their voices are TTS, rather than SAPI5. 

Is there are a distinction between TTS and SAPI5 voices? If so, is there one format I should get to ensure compatibility? 

Thanks for your help! 

Rob

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

TTS is a generic term meaning Text To Speech.  

SAPI5 is a specific type of TTS voice that works with Pilot2ATC.  Both IVONA and CereProc make SAPI5 desktop voices, which is what you need for P2A.  They may also have other types of TTS voices, so before purchasing, be sure of the details.

This link might help answer your questions:

 

[markcellis 133]

Just as an FYI I have been playing around with the Amazon Poly for Windows plugin for another project. This plugin will make the Amazon Poly voices show up as SAPI5 voices. So far I have been fairly impressed. They have a free tier but after you exceed that you have to pay for the use but given the cost of the other high quality voices you might purchase it may be an alternative. I have not tried it with Pilot2ATC yet but I would think it would work fine.

Mark

[argee 0]

Thanks, Dave - this is exactly what I needed.

And thanks, Mark, for this suggestion. I'll look into it.

Rob

[woodstock327 22]

3 hours ago, markcellis said:

Just as an FYI I have been playing around with the Amazon Poly for Windows plugin for another project. This plugin will make the Amazon Poly voices show up as SAPI5 voices. So far I have been fairly impressed. They have a free tier but after you exceed that you have to pay for the use but given the cost of the other high quality voices you might purchase it may be an alternative. I have not tried it with Pilot2ATC yet but I would think it would work fine.

Mark

Thanks Mark for the info, I didn't know about AWS Polly! Must admit they do sound quite good, and 5 million characters a month for free (well at least for a year) should be plenty for P2A usage 😛 

I'll try to set this up tonight with P2A and see if they can be used, will report back.

 

Dirk

[Cheeso 0]

Thanks for the pointer to Polly Mark.

 

I've successfully set up Polly voices in windows. Can hear them when testing etc. Unfortunately they do not play when I add and test them in Pilot2ATC.

 

Looking forward to other peoples findings

 

Regards,

G

 

[Cheeso 0]

It works!

I had Polly player open in the background. After closing it, the voices played in Pilot2ATC

 

[woodstock327 22]

14 minutes ago, Cheeso said:

It works!

Darn!

I just went through the same exercise, set everything up and got incredibly excited when the voices showed up in P2A, but found the same - they weren't playing in P2A. But contrary to you, I do not have the Polly Player open 😞 

So when you 'Test' the voices on the Voices configuration tab they play for you? Did you do / configure anything else besides just installing the plugin?

 

Thanks,

Dirk

[woodstock327 22]

Ha, I got it working!! 🎊

I figured if it's working for @Cheeso it might be something with my P2A settings, so I renamed my Application.xml file so that P2A will start up with default settings, and voila - the voices are now playing! After a lot of experimenting and diffing I found that I only had to remove the two settings <SpeechOutputDeviceName> and <SpeechOutputDeviceIndex> from my original settings file in order to make it work. I have no idea why (since it was set to Primary Sound Driver / Index 0) and this worked fine for the MS voices, but apparently it matters somehow and P2A doesn't seem to need it, even MS voices work as before.

Those AWS voices (and there are plenty of choices!) are awesome and sound really natural, and you can't beat the price (free for one year, and then $4 per 5 million characters). Granted, I only tested the voices from the configuration tab so far and still have to see tomorrow how this works out when actually flying, but if there are no further issues this is going to be awesome, and it'll greatly enhance my P2A experience.

Thanks again Mark for pointing us to this option (and Cheeso for motivating me to not give up), you both made my day!

Dirk

[Cheeso 0]

Well done Dirk!

 

I've done a flight and the voices worked fine. I've set them up as Random Voices in Pilot2ATC.  Now I need to nail down the intermittent Flightsim CTD's....

 

Have fun!

[markcellis 133]

Just as an FYI watch out for the Polly Olivia Australian voice. That one seems to throw an error for some reason, even in the Polly Reader, but all the others seem to be working fine with my other applications. Again, I have not specifically tried them with Pilot2ATC.

Mark

[Cheeso 0]

Confirmed

 

[argee 0]

Dirk,

I set up the Amazon Polly voices, and they work in Self-Loading Cargo, but I had the same problem in Pilot2ATC that you had. I want to try the changes to the Application.xml file that worked for you, but I can't find that file. Can you tell me its location?

Thanks,

Rob

[woodstock327 22]

Hi Rob,

its name is AppConfig.xml and not Application.xml (sorry if that's the reason you couldn't find it!), and for me it's in 

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\P2A_200\Settings

Make sure to make a backup 😛 

 

Dirk

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by woodstock327

[argee 0]

Thanks for the tips – it works! In case others try it without immediate success, I had to do some playing around with the AppConfig.xml file. First, I made a copy and saved the original under another name without the .xml extension. I then removed the <SpeechOutputDeviceName> and <SpeechOutputDeviceIndex> from the file, as Dirk noted, but P2ATC wouldn’t load. I tried removing the entire file, and it still wouldn’t load.

Finally, I just renamed the original back to AppConfig.xml, and everything has worked fine since. I’ve added a lot of the Polly voices, and they work as random voices.

(To add to Mark’s warning about Polly Olivia Australian, for me US English Kevin also gives an error in both the Standard and Neural formats.)

I’ll note that I’ve had major problems with having to click on the P2ATC icon 4-5 times to get it to load (I only get a quick flash of the loading screening), but I’m fairly sure this preceded downloading the Polly files - I've put a note in the Bugs subforum. But it’s possible that my difficulties in getting the program to load after modifying the AppConfig.xml were actually due to this other problem.

Many thanks to Mark, Dirk, and Cheeso!

Rob