TTS voices - Recommendations ?

[Mr_Resistor]

I bought several voices thinking I'd switch between them. I settled on two. A stern male voice for alerts, and a lighter female voice with a lovely Australian accent for regular announcements. It sounds like I have Nicole Kidman trapped in the walls of my house.

[TeleFragger]

I bought several voices thinking I'd switch between them. I settled on two. A stern male voice for alerts, and a lighter female voice with a lovely Australian accent for regular announcements. It sounds like I have Nicole Kidman trapped in the walls of my house.

hah nice...

so how do you set different voices per item? that is neat...

[Mr_Resistor]

Rather than just using a regular Speak action....execute a an immediate command

&hs.Speak("<voice required='Name=Ivona 2 Nicole OEM'>This is Ivona Nicole speaking")

with exact name of the voice after the 'Name=xyz ant the text you want spoken after the >

[upstatemike]

I seem to remember that there was a Windows version check on the installer. How did you overcome that?

I don't know. I don't think I did anything beyond copying the files and running the installer.

[jon00]

I don't know. I don't think I did anything beyond copying the files and running the installer.

Found one thread on the subject. You have to modify the installer with Orca https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/ho...o-new-computer

[TeleFragger]

^^^^ I love Orca for that stuff!!! HAH

[upstatemike]

I don't know if this matters but my disks came from a company called NextUp and were bundeled with their TTS program called TextAloud. I don't use TextAloud for anything anymore but I don't remember needing to do anything special to install the voices. The two main voices (MIke and Crystal?) also include the TTS engine so you have to install them first. Then you can add additional voices. I don't know what Orca is so I'm pretty sure I didn't need to use it.

[jon00]

I don't know if this matters but my disks came from a company called NextUp and were bundeled with their TTS program called TextAloud. I don't use TextAloud for anything anymore but I don't remember needing to do anything special to install the voices. The two main voices (MIke and Crystal?) also include the TTS engine so you have to install them first. Then you can add additional voices. I don't know what Orca is so I'm pretty sure I didn't need to use it.

That's probably the difference. Mine were purchased through Homeseer in 2002

[TeleFragger]

That's probably the difference. Mine were purchased through Homeseer in 2002

what version of hs? pre 1.7? I used trial of 1.7 then 2 came out and i jumped on!!! hah

[jon00]

what version of hs? pre 1.7? I used trial of 1.7 then 2 came out and i jumped on!!! hah

Yes pre 1.7

[langenet]

I bought HomeSeer in May 2003 and received the disk which had 1.6. Shortly after, an upgrade came as 1.7

[Guest]

so how do you set different voices per item? that is neat...

You can change the voice in a normal HS Speak event command by including the following string in the text:

<voice required="name = Microsoft Zira Desktop">

And you can change the voice midstream as well. For example:

<voice required="name = Microsoft David Desktop">Zira, I love you<voice required="name = Microsoft Zira Desktop">Drop dead

(Love the looks I get from guests when playing that without any warning)

As mentioned above, only 32 bit TTS voices will work with Homeseer. You can see what voices are loaded on your Windows 10 system by running "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Speech\SpeechUX\sapi.cpl" manually. Using that program can also change the default voice used (when not using the Voice Required tag).

[Mr_Resistor]

You can change the voice in a normal HS Speak event command by including the following string in the text:

Way cool. I didn't know you could do it in a regular voice string. I'd always done it as an immediate script command. Thanks for the new use case.

[amr42]

Would like suggestions of sources of other Flite (Festival Lite) voices (HS3 on Linux) and how to configure the new voice as the default? Anyone?