An intersting but obviously fake announcement I stitched together.

[bengley]

http://www.supload.com/listen?s=46dxNK#


Don't click the 'Send Shoeburyness Ringtone To Your Phone' links on that page, they are advertisements and may be harmful to your computer. The website which the audio is hosted on is fine.

 

[thefab444]

Meanwhile, in the absence of trains, Phil Sayer has taken to announcing buses!

We're sorry for the delay to this bus service.

 

[Jordy]

Welcome to the First Transpennine Express service to......Toilets

 

[37401]

Jordy, I love it

 

[Broken Viking]

Thoser were all proper classics, if ye ask me! I especially like the fact that "Smoking is not permitted in any part of this train, including the smoking part of this train" and that passengers are requested to "Keep the toilets free of luggage and other obstructions"... hock::razz:

If ever I get the time, I'll have to try a few meself...I think!

 

[34002salisbury]

bengley could i use that annoucemnt iun a video as i have a plan

 

[bengley]

bengley could i use that annoucemnt iun a video as i have a plan

Sure thing.

 

[Ivo]

Absolutely brilliant. Especially considering the train would have to reverse several times, even discounting Paddington.

But...

I lived there for nearly 20 years! To Hell with Shoeburyness! I think I'd prefer it if the train in question would continue to Platform 3 at full speed...!

 

[Broken Viking]

I don't suppose there's a program available that can synthesize (Speak) Phil Sayer announcements from a plain text input, is there?

 

[thefab444]

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[bengley]

I don't suppose there's a program available that can synthesize (Speak) Phil Sayer announcements from a plain text input, is there?

That would be awesome, I would pay good money for something like that.

 

[Geezertronic]

With a bit of VBScript, you can make your own computer speak - although there's no changing the default voice that I know

Dim msg, sapi
msg=InputBox("Enter your text for conversion")
Set sapi=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")
sapi.Speak msg

Just copy/paste the code above into a text file, rename the text file to have the extension VBS (for example: Speech.vbs), then double-click the file to run it.

 

[thefab444]

That would be awesome, I would pay good money for something like that.

I'm sure one of the TTS companies like Acapela would make a voice based on samples provided by Phil (that's how a lot of the modern more fluent sounding TTS voices are made) if you paid both parties enough!

 

[Ivo]

The following is a recording I have just made using Text-to-Speech recognition on Vista, with the Microsoft Anna voice (Sam died after XP):

Platform - 2, for the 12, o 7, First Great Western service to - Brighton. Calling at - Bradford-on-Aven, Trow-bridge, Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury, Romsey, Southampton Central, Fareham, Coshum, Havent, Chichester, Barnham, Worthing, Shoreham-by-Sea, Hove, and Brighton. Platform - 2, for the 12, o 7, First Great Western service to - Brighton.

The occasional mistake (e.g. Coshum) is to make it sound more realistic.

 

[Broken Viking]

With a bit of VBScript, you can make your own computer speak - although there's no changing the default voice that I know

Cheers for that, Geezer! I didn't know it was possible to use the speech API from VBScript!

From skimming the relevant Wikipedia page, I would hazard a guess that the voice could be changed using objSpeechAPI.Voice=[voice] or something like that. Of course, the user would need the relevant voice library installed.

Just copy/paste the code above into a text file, rename the text file to have the extension VBS (for example: Speech.vbs), then double-click the file to run it.

Just had a brief play around with it. Couldn't resist executing the following command though...
CreateObject("sapi.spvoice").Speak "Welcome aboard the South West Trains service to London Waterloo. This is the first of fifty-five thousand annoying announcements..."

Incidentally, where might I find other voices (Preferably free ones) for the MS Speech API? Microsoft Sam does get a bit boring after a while...

 

[Geezertronic]

Incidentally, where might I find other voices (Preferably free ones) for the MS Speech API? Microsoft Sam does get a bit boring after a while...

Don't know to be honest, I've only ever used the speech VBS to prank friends and colleagues (along with the VB code to open the CD drive periodically )

 

[thefab444]

TTS can sound quite realistic. Indeed, LU have used TTS for announcements for some time, and TTS fitted help points have been appearing at stations like Severn Tunnel Junction and Kidsgrove.

 

[34002salisbury]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mECL45N9Vc
this is what i've been up to
and yes i did place a 32 coach hst

 

[bengley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mECL45N9Vc
this is what i've been up to
and yes i did place a 32 coach hst

Haha, pretty cool. I bet that HST didn't fit into the platform though
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

TTS can sound quite realistic. Indeed, LU have used TTS for announcements for some time, and TTS fitted help points have been appearing at stations like Severn Tunnel Junction and Kidsgrove.

What program is that done on?

 

[34002salisbury]

railworks my good friend

 

[thefab444]

I think he meant my announcement, which was made using Acapela.

 

[Aictos]

This is the end result of me having one too many black coffees while at work, please note it did sound better live then it does being played back.

Feedback would be nice, guys