alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Recluse AV – Text to Speech Driver The Recluse AV text to speech driver for Control4 integrates 3rd party web based text to speech engines into Control4. This allows you to build dynamic audio announcements without any additional hardware.Eg announce “Good morning Alan. Today's forecast is sunny with a maximum of 23 degrees. You have 1 new email from Jason.”In this case there would be 4 variables included from 2 supporting drivers. Sunny, 23, 1 and Jason would all be variables which you would reference in the programming.Features* Dynamic text to speech generation* Variable insertion into announcements* Compatible with Recluse AV's suite of drivers* Compatible with 3rd party drivers* Compatible with Control4 variables* Composer Home Edition Friendly* NEW support for ispeech.org premium natural multi-lingal voicesDRIVER SPECIFIC FAQCan you give us some examples of how we could use this driver?*At Recluse we utilise this driver in conjunction with our ekey and M1 drivers to welcome our staff (eg Welcome Alan) whenever someone swipes to enter the door or disarms our security system.*You can use this in conjunction with the Control4 Thermostat to give audible feedback for current temperature.*Useful for people who are blind or have poor eyesight.Are there any other cool things we can do with this driver?*Recluse AV released a POP3 email driver. This driver will be designed to work with the text to speech driver to dynamically generate audio announcements. Imagine being late home. You get your iphone 4s to email your house to play an audio announcement with your message 'i'm coming home late - dad'.*Recluse AV is working on various drivers which will work in conjunction with this TTS engine. For example Alan currently has an early version of the yet to be released weather driver that integrates with TTS.Will this driver cost us money annually?There is only a once off charge for this driver licence for each project. Note though the ispeech.org premium service will charge for generation of speech.What voices do you support?* speechutil.com* speechapi.com (jmk-arctic voice)* speechapi.com (slt-arctic voice)* speechapi.com (bdl-arctic voice)* speechapi.com (hmm-jmk voice)* speechapi.com (hmm-bdl voice)* speechapi.com (hmm-slt voice)* voicerss.org (Catalan)* voicerss.org (Chinese China)* voicerss.org (Chinese Hong Kong)* voicerss.org (Chinese Taiwan)* voicerss.org (Danish)* voicerss.org (Dutch)* voicerss.org (English Australia)* voicerss.org (English Canada)* voicerss.org (English Great Britain)* voicerss.org (English India)* voicerss.org (English United States)* voicerss.org (Finnish)* voicerss.org (French Canada)* voicerss.org (French France)* voicerss.org (German)* voicerss.org (Italian)* voicerss.org (Japanese)* voicerss.org (Korean)* voicerss.org (Norwegian)* voicerss.org (Polish)* voicerss.org (Portuguese Brazil)* voicerss.org (Portuguese Portugal)* voicerss.org (Russian)* voicerss.org (Spanish Mexico)* voicerss.org (Spanish Spain)* voicerss.org (Spanish Sweden)* ispeech.org (US English Female)* ispeech.org (US English Male)* ispeech.org (UK English Female)* ispeech.org (UK English Male)* ispeech.org (Australian English Female)* ispeech.org (US Spanish Female)* ispeech.org (US Spanish Male)* ispeech.org (Chinese Female)* ispeech.org (Chinese Male)* ispeech.org (Hong Kong Cantonese Female)* ispeech.org (Taiwan Chinese Female)* ispeech.org (Japanese Female)* ispeech.org (Japanese Male)* ispeech.org (Korean Female)* ispeech.org (Korean Male)* ispeech.org (Canadian English Female)* ispeech.org (Hungarian Female)* ispeech.org (Brazilian Portuguese Female)* ispeech.org (European Portuguese Female)* ispeech.org (European Portuguese Male)* ispeech.org (European Spanish Female)* ispeech.org (European Spanish Male)* ispeech.org (European Catalan Female)* ispeech.org (European Czech Female)* ispeech.org (European Danish Female)* ispeech.org (European Finnish Female)* ispeech.org (European French Female)* ispeech.org (European French Male)* ispeech.org (European Norwegian Female)* ispeech.org (European Dutch Female)* ispeech.org (European Dutch Male)* ispeech.org (European Polish Female)* ispeech.org (European Italian Female)* ispeech.org (European Italian Male)* ispeech.org (European Turkish Female)* ispeech.org (European Turkish Male)* ispeech.org (European German Female)* ispeech.org (European German Male)* ispeech.org (Russian Female)* ispeech.org (Russian Male)* ispeech.org (Swedish Female)* ispeech.org (Canadian French Female)* ispeech.org (Canadian French Male)What does the voice sound like?The free speechutil.com and speechapi.com voices are quite robotic. We have also integrated the voicerss.org voices which out of the free voices are the most natural sounding. We however recommend signing up to ispeech.org to use their premium service if you want it to sound really nice. See link below for an example US English Female voice.https://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine.wavHow do I find out more information about the driver?Please read contact your Control4 dealer for more information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Alan, this is HUGE!!! I'm curious about the voices though. Is it possible to demo this driver for a couple of weeks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 Unfortunately our licencing structure does not allow for demo's. Having said that i could record a sample of the voice for you. Honestly though since the service we utilise is a free online server (hence why theres only a once off driver charge) and as such the voice is pretty mediocre. Very robotic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 Here is a sample of the text to speech engine output from the driver.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine%20Sample.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Unfortunately our licencing structure does not allow for demo's. Having said that i could record a sample of the voice for you. Honestly though since the service we utilise is a free online server (hence why theres only a once off driver charge) and as such the voice is pretty mediocre. Very robotic.I downloaded the demo, thanks. I'll give it a listen later on. Would it be possible to use a different text to speech engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 I've made th driver modular enough to add additional text to speech engines in the future. I will endeavour to find better text to speach engines however the majority of the online ones do not support the requirements for generation of audio over the web (either that or the licencing agreement does not permit us to use it for commercial purposes).Its one step closer to iron man's house:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 this sounds very cool indeed!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 There are so many cool things you could do with this.I'd love to be able to press a button and hear the current time and temperature. Simple things like that would be really cool.I just want a voice that is somewhat real sounding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 I've added another module to it that utilises another TTS service. Here is a sample of one of the voiceshttp://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine%20Sample%202.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 I've added another module to it that utilises another TTS service. Here is a sample of one of the voiceshttp://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine%20Sample%202.zipOkay, I just listened the first one for the first time, and then now this new one. The new one is MUCH better, but is still fairly robotic.I found a really good one online, but I'm sure it's a pay for service. I'll see if I can find it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 Hi Dan,Here is the same voice at a 16000 sample rather then the default 8000http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine%20Sample%203.zipThe new version of the driver with the new voices has beed uploaded to our website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Hi Dan,Here is the same voice at a 16000 sample rather then the default 8000http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41593326/Recluse%20AV%20-%20TTS%20Engine%20Sample%203.zipThe new version of the driver with the new voices has beed uploaded to our website.Alan, do you mind me asking a question? I assume that this is a free TTS engine you found on the web?I'm sure you've scoured the world over looking for the best one, but I'm curious what requirements such a service needs to meet to be used in this capacity? Also, say a client paid a couple bucks a month for a personal use service from the web, could the driver be modified to use it?Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 The requirements are actually quite simple. THe driver downloads the file from the web and then reuploads it to the Control4 announcements folder.* has to be a wav file (PCM)* has to be generated via the web host and sent via the web* preferably generated via URL parameters.We could implement this paid for service if there was enough demand for it. By enough demand i would say at least 5 driver sales that wanted to use this service.Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 This is the one: https://ondemand.neospeech.com/editor/It looks like you pay, but I have no idea how much or how an on-going on demand thing would work.I attached a sample I created, using "Julie". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 You posted in the wrong thread dan.anyway there is a clause that we can't bypass"Preview audio is always 16kHz and may be used for preview purposes only.Background noise will be removed from the purchased speech audio."We may eventually implement paid for services which the user will just have to put in their username/password for. Having said that though i doubt many people would pay for a subscription based service for this. who knows.I wouldn't pay much in terms of recurring expense, maybe a couple of bucks.Here's a question...with all that going on in the background, how long does it take for the announcement to be created, sent to website, created at webservice, downloaded to C4, moved to appropriate folder, added to announcements and fire? Is this something that happens in a couple of seconds? Does it use a lot of processing overhead (I have plenty of processing overhead in my project, but thinking about smaller single controller projects). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 23, 2012 Author Share Posted March 23, 2012 The WAV file is generated within a second or two on a hc300. This is of course dependant on the length of the text. The issue is the time it takes to play the announcement. For single controller projects this is not an issue as the processing is now consistent. There is processing only when the tts driver is called. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Letran Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 How much something like this install and setup? Would somebody care to throw a range? Is there a lot of tweaking or setup and go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 It depends on what you mean by setup. The driver itself is a piece of cake however setting the actual text up in programming is dependant on what you want it to do. I would get your dealer to discuss your requirements with you as this could be anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Letran Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 It depends on what you mean by setup. The driver itself is a piece of cake however setting the actual text up in programming is dependant on what you want it to do. I would get your dealer to discuss your requirements with you as this could be anything.Thanks Alan, This is actually what I'm trying to gather. I don't know what I mean by setup, Is this a remote driver install and everything else is user configured via HE. or every word needs dealer programming. If I ask my dealer tomorrow 100% I'll get a blank stare as a response. I know the pricing is always going to depend on the dealer. I know it could range from a simple driver install to a couple of million dollars depending on which dealer and how complicated you want it to be.Nothing painfully specific just pricing a range of cost, approximate labour time would be helpful. Just to see if it is worth considering. Just hoping for a quick helpful informative answer in regards to pricing. If that is of course possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 The driver install can be done remotely. If you use composer home edition you can do everything else yourself. Note that you need to be using control4 audio for this to work as it relies on the control4 announcement agent. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Note that you need to be using control4 audio for this to work as it relies on the control4 announcement agent. Hope this helps.How do you set this up? Would running an analog out from an HC300 into a receiver work, or would there be too much delay setting up all the input changes? ie or would you need a speaker point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 It will work through a receiver however announcements don't work particularly well through it (due to power on and switching). A speakerpoints or control4 amp would be better from my testing. At the moment I have set this up at my house to announce what wattage my house is using in key press.Also voices are ok not fantastic. TTS voices are still very monotonous. One day I'm hoping to make iron man's house:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 This is very cool Alan. It will tie in extremely well with your biomed finger print scanner app and the Ness Alarm app"Hello Juliana" (my cleaner). "Please remember to switch off the Alarm"and"Hello thieves" "Please note you are being video'd right now and the Police are on their way"and "Let's all exit in an orderly fashion to the rear of the building" (When the fire alarm is triggered) That sort of thingIt's very cool indeed :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 Hell yeah:)I've always planned to have all of my drivers interact together but this just makes it even nicer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JP Rizal Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Very Cool. Good work Alan. Are you working on the secretarial hologram next? What is the MSRP on the driver? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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