Paul Corfield wrote:
On 10 Nov 2006 18:02:34 -0800, "
wrote:


purple pete wrote:
Ironically, I tried to encourage one of the Arnos Grove crew to become a
professional announcer, because he has the best voice of anyone I've ever
met.


Send him to Wembley Park to replace the drone that makes those
announcements. Has the most monotone (northern accent) and sounds like he
is about to slit his wrists..and to make matters worse its obviously in a
loop so you cant get away - which leads me to notice how that since the
station has been rebuilt how they never stop making announcements. The
other day whilst waiting around 6 mins for a train there must have been
around 10 announcements announcing no smoking/dont slip on wet
surface/weekend service interupptions/good service on Met line/bad service
on etc.../stand behind yellow line at all times etc etc etc

stab, stab, stab

Sorry - calmed down now. The incessant stream of announcements on the
Tube drives me nuts. While I realise the provision of information is for
everyone's good if the service has gone wrong I do think we need to
reduce the frequency of these more "standard" announcements.

I can get 6 or 7 announcements on a really bad day from getting off a
Vic Line train to exiting Walthamstow Central. It only takes about 3
minutes for me to get through the station.

I could do it in my nyawk non axcent "yo da next train on the north
bound metropolitan train is going to amersham you gotta problem widdat
?"

Oh so that's what they say on the subway. I could never get my head
round what the guards were saying when they made announcements.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In NYC MTA they are motormen who drive the train and conductors who
open and close the doors. BTW on the new trains R142 and newer thecars
have a electronic map which show the stops lit. and the announcements
are done by Bloomberg radio newsreaders this was done b4 bloomberg was
mayor

Boltar wrote:
Why did the redo it anyway, was it because of the T5 extension?
Surely it would have made more sense to use a speech synthesizer
anyway instead of digitised audio,then no re-recording necessary.
Just type in the new phrase and you're done. Its not like they sound
like Speak & Spell these anymore so why arn't these systems used?

Because if you listen to the 'man' at Kings Cross, you'll see that
there are good systems and bad systems. LUL seems to have bought the
bad system, although obviously it can be fixed through software. When,
I do not know.

Maybe at the same time that they can make the gates work properly...

Jonathan

On 12 Nov 2006 16:10:36 -0800, "Jonathan Morris"
wrote:

Boltar wrote:
Why did the redo it anyway, was it because of the T5 extension?
Surely it would have made more sense to use a speech synthesizer
anyway instead of digitised audio,then no re-recording necessary.
Just type in the new phrase and you're done. Its not like they sound
like Speak & Spell these anymore so why arn't these systems used?

Because if you listen to the 'man' at Kings Cross, you'll see that
there are good systems and bad systems.

It depends where the breaks between phrases are. The problem is that
the breaks between fixed words and variable words aren't where real
people naturally breathe. So instead of a natural "this is a
Piccadilly line train / to Cockfosters", you get a very
unnatural-sounding "this is a Piccadilly line train to ///
Cockfosters", unless the person doing the recording is told where to
breathe.

James Farrar wrote:
It depends where the breaks between phrases are. The problem is that
the breaks between fixed words and variable words aren't where real
people naturally breathe. So instead of a natural "this is a
Piccadilly line train / to Cockfosters", you get a very
unnatural-sounding "this is a Piccadilly line train to ///
Cockfosters", unless the person doing the recording is told where to
breathe.

But this is speech synthesis, and the science is pretty mature now
considering a decent effort is available on a SatNav that costs under
£400, or mobile phones that cost £200 or less (and free on a
contract). TomTom does a pretty good job speaking clearly (see
http://www.tomtom.com/products/produ...tegory=0&Lid=1 for
a chance to hear for yourself). In fact, why not compose an example
announcement to see if it does a better job than the lame LUL version!
Nokia has software that can read text messages, although admittedly
this is rather hit and miss.

Navteq now stores phonetic information for all place names/streets on
their maps, which should improve the pronounciation even more. Surely
LUL could at least ensure that the system can know exactly how to
pronounce station names and different lines properly and clearly!!

As I said before, it's just a matter of tweaking the software. Once
this is done, it's an excellent way of ensuring passengers can get all
the information they could ever need. I am sure LUL would agree with
everything I have said too.

Jonathan

Jonathan Morris wrote:
James Farrar wrote:
It depends where the breaks between phrases are. The problem is that
the breaks between fixed words and variable words aren't where real
people naturally breathe. So instead of a natural "this is a
Piccadilly line train / to Cockfosters", you get a very
unnatural-sounding "this is a Piccadilly line train to ///
Cockfosters", unless the person doing the recording is told where to
breathe.

But this is speech synthesis, and the science is pretty mature now
considering a decent effort is available on a SatNav that costs under
£400, or mobile phones that cost £200 or less (and free on a
contract). TomTom does a pretty good job speaking clearly (see
http://www.tomtom.com/products/produ...tegory=0&Lid=1 for
a chance to hear for yourself). In fact, why not compose an example
announcement to see if it does a better job than the lame LUL version!
Nokia has software that can read text messages, although admittedly
this is rather hit and miss.

Navteq now stores phonetic information for all place names/streets on
their maps, which should improve the pronounciation even more. Surely
LUL could at least ensure that the system can know exactly how to
pronounce station names and different lines properly and clearly!!

As I said before, it's just a matter of tweaking the software. Once
this is done, it's an excellent way of ensuring passengers can get all
the information they could ever need. I am sure LUL would agree with
everything I have said too.

This is great entertainment... you're right in that the quality is
pretty good, although it does stumble over certain names (which I'm sure
could easily be fixed with the right phonetic info stored in the
database). I wonder, however, whether people would pay less attention if
the announcement were more natural! The stiltedness of the station names
on the current announcements makes them stand out, so people don't need
to listen properly to the announcement to realise that the next station
is Lancaster Gate.

PS I love that Hainault instantly tranforms from routine Essex suburb
into picturesque French town.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London