Generating audio alerts for POI's.

druck

The POI-Warner program has a default audio alert of "Danger Zone" in a german accent, which while it might just be appropriate of speed cameras, it isn't that useful for other POI's. However you can use your own samples instead, and this probably applies to other POI software as well

I first thought of recording my own voice with the PDA, but that didn't sound very good. I have now found a far better alternative. There are a number of web sites offering an online demo of their speech synthesis software, and you can use these to say whatever you want and save the resulting samples to use in POI-Warner. The best sites I found are:-

Make sure you select one of the English female voices for the best effect.

I found the Vocaliser Clare voice to be closest to what is used in my Navigon software, so I used that to generate some warning for seed cameras, using "Approching speed camera" for the first alert, "Warning speed camera" for the second alert, and "Limit X mph" for the speed alert. Note that the speeds shown in POI-Warner are in km/h so you have to put the mph warning sample in the appropriate one, e.g. 30mph warning for 50km/h camera.

They seem to work very well, although if you have any audio editing software you might want to boost the volume up to maximum otherwise they may be a bit quieter than the voice used in the nav software. I've only tested them in simulation mode so far, which doesn't give the speed limit warning as it isn't speeding. I might try to test this for real when its quiet out, and I can slam the brakes on with no one behind me!

Cheers
---Dave

Howarduk · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:09 pm Post subject:

Hi Druck

I have also found that the audio alerts were very quiet compared to the Nav Software which audio software did you use to boost the sound?

Howard

druck · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:49 pm Post subject:

I used an application on the RISC OS operating system, so you probably wont be familiar with it.

However, any freeware audio editing program should have a facility called increase gain, maximise amptitude or similar, to increase the volume of the speech without clipping.

Cheers
---Dave

Howarduk · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:56 pm Post subject:

hi druck

Thanks for the quick reply. I downloaded a free programme called audacity the problem seemed to be that it was already at the maximum volume without clipping anyway, according to this programme and I couldnt increase it any more. Does it vary from programme to programme or rather software to software the volume control adjustments?

Howard

druck · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 9:11 pm Post subject:

Its more likely to depend on what voice you used and what was said, as to what the maxmimum audio level is. You might have to clip to get the volume up, it will probably only affect things like 's' sounds.

Cheers
---Dave

Howarduk · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 9:15 pm Post subject:

Okay, thanks again. I will give it another shot.

Howard

DavidW · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 9:16 pm Post subject:

More sophisticated audio software can carry out various tricks to increase volume without clipping. I've got Adobe Audition, which can do these tricks. Essentially, you increase the volume unless it's already at maximum - somewhat like using a compressor in sound engineering (what you're doing is squashing the dynamic range). In Audition, the easiest thing to do is use Hard Limiting.

If you want to email me the .WAV file, Howard, I'll see what Audition says the amplitude is, and see if I can make it louder for you. Push the email button below if you're interested...

David

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