Disembodied voice

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NormanS

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As people who receive Stornoway's MMSI broadcasts will be aware, humans have been replaced by a robotic woman. Now, not only is the introduction to the MMSI broadcast being done by " voice from text", the whole broadcast is now being done by a machine. It now is merely a string of words, without any inflection to give it meaning. Tonight, the Inshore Forecast was missed out, and the other night the Shipping Forecast was missed out. WARNING. THIS COULD (AND PROBABLY WILL) BE COMING TO A CG STATION NEAR YOU, SOON. Oh! It's good to have a rant! :D
 
https://vocaroo.com/i/s074sAqc0OnH

I'm struggling to do this on a phone, the above should link to a recording... not the dulcet tones of Mairie!

Edit.. If you download your preferred file, and open with "music, option... Works for me on an lg phone!
 
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This is a step in the right direction. Next, they should identify a suitable channel and broadcast the most recent forecasts on a continuous loop. They could also give much more detailed information, since the BBC's restrictions would not apply.
 
JumbleDuck said:
This is a step in the right direction. Next, they should identify a suitable channel and broadcast the most recent forecasts on a continuous loop. They could also give much more detailed information, since the BBC's restrictions would not apply.
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As long as they don't imitate the Italian one which goes on for hours (seems like it). No intonation and you have to wait ages until they rush past the only useful bit. Guaranteed to put you to sleep after a couple of minutes, even if you have just had breakfast. I always seemed to catch the safety notices instead of the forecast. That's even worse as you don't know if there will be a useful bit. Not really a problem as I usually had a forecast from other sources, but switching to a VHF forecast was almost automatic after all these years. This finally broke the habit.:D:D

I listened to the recording in the earlier post. No comparison with the Italian one, UK version is much slower, clearer and less soporific.
 
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Mistroma said:
As long as they don't imitate the Italian one which goes on for hours (seems like it). No intonation and you have to wait ages until they rush past the only useful bit. Guaranteed to put you to sleep after a couple of minutes, even if you have just had breakfast. I always seemed to catch the safety notices instead of the forecast. That's even worse as you don't know if there will be a useful bit. Not really a problem as I usually had a forecast from other sources, but switching to a VHF forecast was almost automatic after all these years. This finally broke the habit.:D:D

I listened to the recording in the earlier post. No comparison with the Italian one, UK version is much slower, clearer and less soporific.
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It must be years since I've listened to a VHF forecast - apart from the Italian once last year for nostalgia - anywhere we can get VHF seems to be close to where we can get a mobile signal and I prefer the internet forecasts with all their pictorial detail. I'm not sure how small the audience must be for them now - certainly not enough to employ a human surely?
 
RupertW said:
It must be years since I've listened to a VHF forecast - apart from the Italian once last year for nostalgia - anywhere we can get VHF seems to be close to where we can get a mobile signal and I prefer the internet forecasts with all their pictorial detail. I'm not sure how small the audience must be for them now - certainly not enough to employ a human surely?
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The whole notion of a shipping forecast granularised to fit the time the BBC could spare for it in the 1920s is absurd now, but some people have a strange sentimental attachment to it. I am sure one of them will be along soon to intone the magic word (?) "GMDSS"
 
RupertW said:
It must be years since I've listened to a VHF forecast - apart from the Italian once last year for nostalgia - anywhere we can get VHF seems to be close to where we can get a mobile signal and I prefer the internet forecasts with all their pictorial detail. I'm not sure how small the audience must be for them now - certainly not enough to employ a human surely?
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Yes, I do the same. Just decades of not having easy access to the latest forecast kept me automatically switching VHF one on when it was announced. No problem in UK where it tends to be fairly short, clear and in a familiar format. It's a hard habit to break after years of actually needing to listen. Finally took the Italian ones to wean me off the habit. :D:D
 
I have an old B&G VHF/LW/MW radio on board. I also listen to the updates on my ship to shore. Of late, the CG updates have been variable, I"m not sure a TXT to voice would be an improvement. I used to like the sound of a hoary old sea dog reassuringly reading the script and there was the added advantage that if you missed a relevant bit, you could always radio in and get the section repeated. It's OK for people with deep pockets and Satcoms, but for those of us who are still SOP sailors (Seat of Pants) without a plethora of electronics to rely on I really appreciate the CG VHF Tx.
 
Be careful what you wish for! The CA have been inundated with complaints about the quality of the MSI broadcasts especially form Dover and, less often Solent, so have been discussing it with the MCA. The MCA answer? Replace the excellent ones by a recorded or synthesised voice. Cr*p outcome. The Falmouth and Strornoway GC never had any complaints. Grrr.
 
Heard the automated voice announcing the weather forecast from Stornaway CG so tuned in to listen out of interest.
Due to the very limited vocabulary of the marine forecast, the automated voice was very clear and precise. Top marks for clarity.
Also, as you would expect, totally lacks any personality and humour. So rather dull. Just like a forecast, really.

So don’t have any issues with this being rolled out further. Like Jumbleduck, have felt for years that to be useful this should be played on a dedicated VHF channel on loop (like in NZ), so don’t have to wait for hours to catch a forecast.
But in practice time is overtaking VHF forecasts and rarely listen in as get this online if needed (and anyway Inshore Waters far too short horizon to be useful for cruise routing)
 
Other than Stornoway pronouncing the middle o slowly it didn't sound THAT bad. There will be a way to type Stornoway so it sounds better ! Perhaps Stornway

The need for the announcement to be text to speech is odd. That could be a one off recording played multiple times.
The vocabulary here is very limited. It would be better to have each word pre-recorded than each 'sound'

I'd expect the text of every MSI in the last year is on a central server... The words and phrases could be extracted very easily. Marie could then read those. And then some editing done to make it work...
 
ShinyShoe said:
Other than Stornoway pronouncing the middle o slowly it didn't sound THAT bad. There will be a way to type Stornoway so it sounds better ! Perhaps Stornway

The need for the announcement to be text to speech is odd. That could be a one off recording played multiple times.
The vocabulary here is very limited. It would be better to have each word pre-recorded than each 'sound'

I'd expect the text of every MSI in the last year is on a central server... The words and phrases could be extracted very easily. Marie could then read those. And then some editing done to make it work...
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I may be wrong but my guess was that it was probably mostly playing pre-defined words, rather than just generic text to audio. Certainly no issues at all over clarity of diction.
The usual suspects will of course complain about any change to ancient CoastGuard practices, good or bad :)
 
dunedin said:
I may be wrong but my guess was that it was probably mostly playing pre-defined words, rather than just generic text to audio. Certainly no issues at all over clarity of diction.
The usual suspects will of course complain about any change to ancient CoastGuard practices, good or bad :)
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I think that I am perfectly entitled to complain when they miss out the Shipping Forecast/Inshore Forecast, at the times when they are scheduled to be broadcast.:rolleyes:
 
It is a waste of skills, reading out a weather forecast, when the technology can easily convert the data to a machine voice. I don't think there is a lady telling me where to go when my car's SatNav is engaged.
 
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Perhaps listened once or twice last season.

To think we planned meals and meets round the forecast, listening in silence particularly when it meant an interesting ride home. I think I only used the other service provided on the VHF re link calls a couple of times . Bit of a shock when the phone bill came in. Cell phones and much cheaper internet rates I think is a good thing for yotties particularly the variety of forecasts on offer.

I wonder if the coastguard still gets calls from customers asking where they might be. There must be some classics still on tape somewhere.
 
I wonder if all these people who rely on the Internet, don't actually venture very far off the beaten track? Yes, I use Internet when I can, and it's brilliant for getting detailed, and longer looking forecasts, but I often have no Internet access. Maybe you all have Sat Phones.:D
 
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