Voices
Quote from BiKenG on 12.08.2022, 14:14For many years I have been using Co-Pilot with one of its synthesised female English (UK) voices which was excellent, being basically indistinguishable from a real person.
In Scenic today I tried switching from the (recorded) English (US) male voice to the synthesised English (UK) voice and I have to say, it's terrible. Sounding very synthesised and robotic. Like speaking through a vocoder.
I will try the recorded voices, but as I understand it, that means no street names which is a big advantage of the synthesised ones.
So a couple of questions come to mind:-
First of all, I only see male offered, where's the choice of gender in synthesised voices?
Secondly, why is Scenic's synthesised voice so bad. There's a lot better available.
I think it relevant that Co-Pilot utilises the same Here maps as now does Scenic. So it would seem that there ought to be the same availability of good quality voices, or are they not part of the maps framework Scenic uses?
Is it not possible to get better voices for Scenic?
For many years I have been using Co-Pilot with one of its synthesised female English (UK) voices which was excellent, being basically indistinguishable from a real person.
In Scenic today I tried switching from the (recorded) English (US) male voice to the synthesised English (UK) voice and I have to say, it's terrible. Sounding very synthesised and robotic. Like speaking through a vocoder.
I will try the recorded voices, but as I understand it, that means no street names which is a big advantage of the synthesised ones.
So a couple of questions come to mind:-
First of all, I only see male offered, where's the choice of gender in synthesised voices?
Secondly, why is Scenic's synthesised voice so bad. There's a lot better available.
I think it relevant that Co-Pilot utilises the same Here maps as now does Scenic. So it would seem that there ought to be the same availability of good quality voices, or are they not part of the maps framework Scenic uses?
Is it not possible to get better voices for Scenic?
Quote from Guido on 12.08.2022, 14:19I agree. The synthetic voice are pretty old fashioned at the moment.
Scenic still uses HERE’s ‘old’ framework. That might be the reason. The voices offered are the ones that come with that framework.
Co-Pilot might be on the newer HERE framework or might have implemented their own tts (text-to-speech) engine.
Im migrating Scenic to the new HERE framework after the summer. Will check the voices at that time. If still the same ‘old fashioned’ I’ll also switch it to iOS’s tts engine.
I agree. The synthetic voice are pretty old fashioned at the moment.
Scenic still uses HERE’s ‘old’ framework. That might be the reason. The voices offered are the ones that come with that framework.
Co-Pilot might be on the newer HERE framework or might have implemented their own tts (text-to-speech) engine.
Im migrating Scenic to the new HERE framework after the summer. Will check the voices at that time. If still the same ‘old fashioned’ I’ll also switch it to iOS’s tts engine.
Quote from mbirth on 25.11.2022, 06:57I've just tried voice output and have to agree: The British Scenic voice is terrible.
However, iOS comes with own voices which can be configured in Settings --> Accessibility --> Spoken Content --> Voices. There are very basic voices and "Enhanced" voices that sound much more natural. The voice of Scenic sounds like the very basic "Daniel" voice which is what's used by iOS when no other voice is installed.
When changing the voice from my selected "Oliver (Enhanced)" to the "normal" Oliver and back, I've noticed that iOS started downloading the "Oliver (Enhanced)" voice. It seems like that went missing with some iOS update in the past, but the voice was still selected so iOS used "terrible Daniel" as fallback.
Now, after "Oliver (Enhanced)" has been installed correctly again (and selected), Scenic also sounds like Oliver - which is MUCH nicer.
I've just tried voice output and have to agree: The British Scenic voice is terrible.
However, iOS comes with own voices which can be configured in Settings --> Accessibility --> Spoken Content --> Voices. There are very basic voices and "Enhanced" voices that sound much more natural. The voice of Scenic sounds like the very basic "Daniel" voice which is what's used by iOS when no other voice is installed.
When changing the voice from my selected "Oliver (Enhanced)" to the "normal" Oliver and back, I've noticed that iOS started downloading the "Oliver (Enhanced)" voice. It seems like that went missing with some iOS update in the past, but the voice was still selected so iOS used "terrible Daniel" as fallback.
Now, after "Oliver (Enhanced)" has been installed correctly again (and selected), Scenic also sounds like Oliver - which is MUCH nicer.
