TTS missing first part of text

[Stevieboy]

Hi

Loving the Sonos plugin, does more than I ever imagined although still finding my way around it so expect more questions to follow .

I am using the speaker proxy option to generate TTS around the house.

Couple of questions I can't seem to grasp yet.

Does it matter what ZP you choose in the linkgroup setting and why is it important. Not sure I fully understand the Build Data base as this is on all Zoneplayers (excuse my ignorance)

Perhaps if I understand this more it will resolve my current issue.

I can create an event and hit the "test" button" and all the text is spoken, however when the event acually runs, the begining of the speech is chopped off

I have read in the help file about introducing a "wait", but do you add the "wait" in the "action" tab or somewhere in the text field or host instance box ?

I understand that the delay is probably due to the zoneplayer needing to be unlinked/linked, volume set etc and also how many zoneplayers it needs to communicate with (at present I only have 5)

When I set up a TTS event am I correct in saying that for an annoucement in the Kitchen, the Linkname would be Kitchen and the source name would be Kitchen. As I say. cant seem to grasp the "reason"" for the Linkname as all music is seen on all zoneplayers

Once again, what an excellent plug in, my life is now complete

Steve

[Rotech]

When u make a event with a TTS, make sure you chk, "wait to to finish speech" (something like that cant remember) option. This may cure the broken TTS.

[dcorsus]

I can create an event and hit the "test" button" and all the text is spoken, however when the event acually runs, the begining of the speech is chopped off

I have read in the help file about introducing a "wait", but do you add the "wait" in the "action" tab or somewhere in the text field or host instance box ?

Could you take some screen shots of how you created the event.

Do you use a physical connection between your HS PC and the audio input of one of the Sonos players? If you do, that Sonos player MUST be the source player, if you don't use this physical connection approach but use the "speak to file" method, it really doesn't matter which player you choose as source zone in the group of players that you have identified to be part of playing this announcement.

When I set up a TTS event am I correct in saying that for an annoucement in the Kitchen, the Linkname would be Kitchen and the source name would be Kitchen. As I say. cant seem to grasp the "reason"" for the Linkname as all music is seen on all zoneplayers

You can take any name you like as Linkname, what is important is that you specify the correct linkgroup name in your event. Maybe what you missed is that you can create many different linkgroups, with different combinations of participating players. For example, if you play announcements when doors are opened, announcing in the Kitchen that the kitchen door was opened might not be very useful, but doing it in the rest of the house, could. Maybe you have announcements that you want to stream through the whole house, including the bedroom, but only during the day, so you would create linkgroups with and without the master bedroom.

Is this what was confusing you, else add some more color, examples or screenshots.

Cheers,

Dirk

[Stevieboy]

Thanks Dirk

I now understand the reasoning behind the "source" zoneplayer, it all makes sense now if you are using line in on one of the ZP.

This does not apply to me as there is no physical connection between PC and Zp's

I was aware that you could create linkzone names and select which players you would like to "add" to the TTS annoucement.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18696723/Event.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18696723/Sonos%20config.jpg


I also make sure that the correct linkname is specified in the Host instance box.

Thanks for clarifying some of the points I could not grasp.

Cheers

Steve

[dcorsus]

I was aware that you could create linkzone names and select which players you would like to "add" to the TTS annoucement.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18696723/Event.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18696723/Sonos%20config.jpg

As far as I can tell, the 10 seconds wait time doesn't do anything, so you can remove that unless one (or more) of these zone players are attached to an amplifier and you want to wait for the amplifier to power up. In that case, I'm missing the "turn amp on" action so I'm assuming these are Sonos players with own amplifier (zp100, ZP120, S3, S5) can you confirm.

The reason the wait doesn't help you has all to do with the second action ("Speak and Wait") being somewhat "self contained". What I mean by that is that it will save all player state, link as instructed, tell HS Speaker to speak, when speaking is over, unlink, restore .... all in one swoop. Adding wait states doesn't help in this case.

So if the beginning of the speech is missing, first check whether the Speech file is not the problem (meaning the speaker client). You can find the speech file in the <hsroot>\html\Sonoscontroller\Announcements directory and in your case the file should be called "Ann_TTS_0.wav". Play it on your HS PC using Media Player or whatever player you have.

If the input file sounds OK, then try to listen to the different players. Is the initial part missing on all players or just on a few or only one? I did have some challenges with Sonos players taking their merry time to crank up the volume but I haven't received any complains in a while.

A little experiment you can do is to set the players loud enough, remove from the config setting the volume = 30 (by the way this is low, you sure it is loud enough?), just put in blank, which means that the player does not have to change it volume to play the announcement. If that works, play around with it a little. Last resort is that you put in a wait state inside the text (do search on HS forum how to include tags in voicestring).

Let me know what you learn

Dirk

[Stevieboy]

Thanks Dirk,

I will play around a bit tomorrow and see what I come up with as times pushing on over here in the UK. I can confirm that there are no amps involved in the setup (ZP100/120) so I will remove the 10 second wait.

The volume set at 30 seems to be loud enough as when it plays its ok.

I will post my findings

Just to add, I am using Neospeech Julie as the voice. Not sure if this would have any bearing on it. This is set as the default voice.

Cheers

Steve

[Stevieboy]

Hi Dirk

I have had time to play today as day off work. I have tried all that has been suggested and it still misses about half a second off the begining of the speech.

Wav file plays ok through media players so indicates source file is ok. No change on volume settings etc and is same on all players, even leaving volume space blank.

Looks like i'm gonna have to add voice strings thingys ?? to begining of files to create a wait.

UPDATE.
I have just tried it using a single ZP and itnow works fine, this does imply that it is just the "linktime" where I am losing the beginging. Would my assumption be correct?

Cheers

Steve

[dcorsus]

.

UPDATE.
I have just tried it using a single ZP and itnow works fine, this does imply that it is just the "linktime" where I am losing the beginging. Would my assumption be correct?

Steve it seems to look that way that multiple players is the cause. Does any of the players have lot and lots of tracks in its queue? Are these players wireless?

Try adding this to your text in the very beginning <silence msec="800"/>

Dirk

[Stevieboy]

Hi Dirk

So far so good I have added what you suggested in the text box at the begining.

All Zoneplayers are hardwired, as for tracks in the queue, there may be just an album or playlist at the most. There certainly isn,t hundreds.

I will see how it goes over the next couple days.

I take it that on future annoucements I will just add this at the beginning of all TTS and this should resolve my Issue?

Next step will be to annouce the weather forecast over the Sonos, I beleive this is something about just reading a script ?

Thank you for producing such an excellent plug in that has brought my Home Automation to life .

Thanks again for your patience and help resolving this issue.

Cheers

Steve

[dcorsus]

Hi Dirk

So far so good I have added what you suggested in the text box at the beginning.

I take it that on future announcements I will just add this at the beginning of all TTS and this should resolve my Issue?

Next step will be to announce the weather forecast over the Sonos, I believe this is something about just reading a script ?

Steve, I'm glad it works but still mystified why you have the problem in the first place. We can make these simple events work but you'll run into problems down the road when you pipe text generated by other plugins or scripts (like weather announcement) into the Sonos plugin. You won't be able to add a delay.

Which version of the sonos plugin are you using? Given that you just started I assume the most recent on the updater but wanted to double check.

You wrote it worked with a single zone, did you try that single zone on each individual player (meaning source and dest zone are the same but each time you pick a different player). If you use a different source player, does it make a difference? Are all 3 players missing the first .5 sec or some?

One more thing to try if all these permutations don't make a difference is to turn the debug flag on for the sonos plugin (in the sonos config screen, don't forget to hit save), run the event and email me the HS-log file.

Dirk

[Stevieboy]

Thanks Dirk

I will try your suggestions and let you know the outcome. I will also e mail you the HS log.

Cheers

Steve

[Stevieboy]

Hi Dirk

You should have Pm, If you havent received, I will send again.

Cheers

Steve

[dcorsus]

Hi Dirk

You should have Pm, If you havent received, I will send again.

Cheers

Steve

Steve,

received your email, was busy last night and out of town this weekend but will try to have a look at it asap.

In the mean time, the issue seems to be around the bathroom player. Is this an older ZP100 or a new ZP120? You wrote it has tracks in its queue, roughly how many? Could you try save everything in your queue (for that player) as a playlist, clear the queue, do test again and see if that made a difference? You can populate your queue by pulling up the saved playlist add it to your queue and then delete the playlist, this is how I save queue info while announcements are playing.

On a different track, do you have "cross fading" on for that player? If you do, can you turn it off and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks

Dirk

[Stevieboy]

Thanks Dirk

I will try what you suggested and be in touch.

Steve

[dcorsus]

Hi Dirk

You should have Pm, If you havent received, I will send again.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve, just looked at what you had stored on dropbox, but I believe that is your HS database. What I need is the log file, capturing the events from the Sonos plugin, with the latter having its debug flag on.

Just noted that Sonos released an update with following description:

Current Software: Version 3.7.1a
Upgrade now to 3.7.1a to fix a bug causing audio playback issues on grouped devices

What SW are you on?

Dirk