Free voices - for TomTom

theloft · Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: Free voices - for TomTom

Can anyone advise the best site to download addtional voices from. Are they really free, any snags ? Is the memory in TT920 sufficient. Sorry if this has already been asked but the Search facility came up with a 54-page
Topic, too much to search through !!

Andy_P · Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:21 pm Post subject:

http://www.satnavvoices.com/
http://www.gps-data-team.com/pda-gps-navigation/topic/11.html
http://www.gpsice.co.uk/voices.html
....and of course TomTom themselves (via TT Home)

theloft · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 9:03 am Post subject:

Thanks Andy for those. You didn't confirm about the memory in the TT920 though, is it sufficient ?

theloft · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 10:08 am Post subject:

Andy, followed instructions, download & pasted a new voice. BUT when I checked my TomTom there is no new voice shown. The 3 files are all showing in Voices on my computer, but do not seem to have progressed to my device, although it was connected.
Can you help ?

Andy_P · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:15 am Post subject:

If you get them from TomTom itself, it's probably easiest to use Home to install them (see HERE for their instructions) but for those from anywhere else, it's easiest to just copy and paste using Windows Explorer.

When you connect the Go to the PC, Windows will recognise it as a new drive, just click on the TomTom icon to see all the files and folders

For voices, they will usually download as a "zip" archive. Right click on it to extract the files and you normally end up with two files... a file called "dataxx.chk (where xx is a 2 digit number) which is the actual voice, and a .vif file with the name of the voice.

Copy these files onto the Tom Tom in the 'Voices' directory (you should already have some similar files in there for "Jane" and "Tim" if you are in the UK).

Switch on the Tom Tom, go to 'preferences' 'change voice' and browse for the voice.

The only possible issue is that every voice needs to have a unique 2-digit number (e.g. "Jane" has data05.chk) so if you download any that happen to have the same number as any you already have, you need to rename the .chk file with a new number and edit one of the lines inside the .vif file to give it the same number (it is just a text file and can be opened and edited with Notepad).

As for space....
I can't tell you if you have enough room on your particular Go 'cos I can't see it!
But when you are connected to the PC and can see the Go as a new drive, just right click on the TomTom icon and select properties, it should then show you a pie-chart and tell you how much free space you have.
Each voice file only takes up about 7-800 kB.

EDIT: All the above is for "real" voices.... If you are talking about "text to speech" voices, the only ones I know of are got directly from TomTom themselves via Home.

andy-c1 · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject:

also here a ozzie site

http://www.ozpoi.com/TomTom_Celebrity_Voices.html
_________________
TomTom 5001

theloft · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your help - Andy_P, but when I connect my TT920 to my computer, I get Tom Tom HOME. I managed to see on that, that there is sufficient space left. The voice I downloaded was from one of your recommended sites, not from Tom Tom. I copied and pasted all 3 files , which I had download to my C drive. These are showing on my computer in my Tom Tom file. I copied and pasted to Tom Tom Home-Voices, but the voice is still not on my device.

Andy_P · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 pm Post subject:

When you connect the TomTom to the PC, Home may well start up - just shut it down again and then use Explorer as usual.

In the "Home" preferences menu, there is an option to start Home automatically when the computer starts up - I would switch this OFF - who needs it wasting PC resources all the time?

As for your downloaded voice...

It looks like you have just copied it to the Home downloads folder on the PC, rather than the voices folder on the Go itself.

So...
First step: IGNORE Home, it just gets in the way. Shut it down.
Now go to Windows Explorer and look at the list of disk drives. Can you see the TomTom listed there?

If you can, click on it and you shouls now see a list of all the folders and files on the Go. There should be one called "voices".

All you should need to do is copy the .chk and the .vif files that you downloaded into that folder
(If you cannot see the 3-letter extensions (the bit after the dot) on the end of the files you need to enable the view of them in Explorer's Tools menu - go to Tools/Folder options /View tab and UN-TICK where it says "Hide extensions for known file types" in the list of options). I'm not sure what your third file is but you shouldn't need it (see below about telling us EVERYTHING you can though).

If you still have problems after that, it will be easiest to work out what's going wrong if you can be as specific as possible. Tell us:

1. the website
2. the voice
3. what the 3 files are called (including the 3 letters after the dot)
4. where you are putting them on the Go (and how)
5. what you are doing to switch to the voice

Every little detail helps when you are trying to work it out at a distance, it would be so much easier if you were in the same room!
With that info, someone can try downloading and installing the exact same voice, you never know, it might just be a duff one....

angelinalove · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 01, 2008 Posts: 6

you should first Switch on the Tom Tom, then go to preferences, 'change voice' and browse for the voice.
Hope this help.

Andy_P · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:51 am Post subject:

theloft · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: free voices for TomTom

Hello again Andy and thank you to all who have posted tips.
The site Idownloaded from was the one directed to from the Second one listed above, posted by you on Sep 28th. The site directed to was :-
http://www.gps-data-team.com/pda-gps-navigation/links/index.php?id=mini2&ID=mini2
I did as you suggested and switched off Tom Tom Home. Connected my TT 920 to PC and it is shown as TomTom(H) drive.
Went to file where I downloaded the voice and when I tried to copy to TomTom Voices file, it said that these were already there and did I want to replace! Checked and yes, the three files are showing on the PC. The three files downloaded were as follows:-
mm voice VIF file.vif
mmCHK file.chk
mm BMPfile Bitmap Image.

Disconnected Tom Tom and went to change preferences, change voices but there is no Marilyn Monroe listed or mm for that matter. I notice on the downloaded files that there is not a unique 2-digit number showing, as you mention in another post. How do I correct this. Sorry to be a pain!!

Andy_P · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:54 pm Post subject: Re: free voices for TomTom

First, apologies for forgetting that you CAN have 3 files not two, the standard TomTom-supplied voices don't need a .bmp picture file

theloft · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: free voices for TomTom

Andy_P · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:40 pm Post subject:

Computer voices (also known as text to speech or TTS voices) can read out things like POI alerts, phone text messages etc. (as well as reading out street names and numbers).

Using a recorded voice you will not get these features, but on my 720 if I select a non-TTS voice it brings up a screen telling me the above and giving me the option to use a TTS voice *just* for the warnings and messages.

theloft · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:47 pm Post subject:

Again a long time before replying, but I gathered that I had a choice, so listened to Joanna Lumley for a while, then swithed back to TTS voice. I don't suppose there are any free to download TTS voices ?

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