TTS Clock is a program for the empeg will speak out loud the weekday, month, day, and time using prerecorded files a few seconds after ignition. Click here to here a sample of it speaking in MP3.

This new version has been modified to work with hijack's ;@EXEC_ONCE feature instead of preinit and also includes a command line option to setup a different time zone.

You can download it from http://www.zabaware.com/empeg

Very cool!

btw: Was is you that uploaded the DomoKun bootup animation?

Sweet program!...... I like it!

I'm in the EST time zone. The time was Friday April 4, 2003 @ 11:54pm

And the voice said.. Saturday April 5, 2003 11:54pm

Minor bug or did I do something wrong?

btw: Was is you that uploaded the DomoKun bootup animation?

Actually it was me that put it on RioCar.org. DomoKun made it and put it up here in the forums a long time ago, and it's been the boot logo on my unit ever since. When I noticed that it wasn't on Riocar.org, I knew people were being deprived of something great, so I put it up there.

I love it too! I want to make the RAAAR longer, but it's on my player too!

Firstly I love tts Clock, I've been using it since vR4. I just loaded vR6 on my player the new version works great and was easy to install. I put the required line ;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/ttsclock to Hijack with a -6 hour time setting.
Now on to my question, when my player reboots I'm getting the greeting and time twice, is there something I should've deleted i.e. preinit (and how do I go about this) or something I need to add. I get the greet and time twice minus 6 hours on the second time, when the time difference ;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/ttsclock -t-6 is used in config.ini. if I remove the -t-6 from it I still hear the greeting and time twice except of course the times are the same. I have my time setting on the player set to my local timezone not UTC. If I remove the ;@EXEC_ONCE from Hijack in config.ini. then it plays the greeting and time just once. I believe this is just using the old version though.
I hope I explained it well enough.
Thanks for any help you can give.

http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/index.html

they now do british, german, english american, english british, and other voices. male and female

Is it just me, or is the Date not corrected for time zone? Any time after 7:00 pm the spoken date is one day ahead, even though the Clock visual shows the correct date & time. I'm using:
2.0Final
Time Zone:Advanced:US:Central
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/ttsclock -t-5
Hijack 329 or 332
Also, should it take two reboots after changing the time before TTSClock speaks the new setting?
Inquiring minds want to know!

There seems to be a bug in TTS Clock. The date is not reading the offset from UTC correctly. In my case (-4 hours), the date rolls over to the next day at 8:00PM local which is really 00:00 UTC. Is there going to be a fix for this?

Thanks,
Jeff

Sorry for not posting for a while. I'll try to fix the bug over the weekend and I'll post an update here when it's fixed. I'm glad you guys like the program and my custom animation

In reply to:

---

when my player reboots I'm getting the greeting and time twice, is there something I should've deleted i.e. preinit (and how do I go about this) or something I need to add.

---

It is using both the new hijack version and the old preinit version. Delete the file b10tts from the folder /etc/preinit.d to remove the old version.

Bump.

Anything doing on the fix?

Very cool bit of programming, btw. I've completely outgeeked all my friends.

-Zeke

this is actually pretty easy to fix. you should be able to use date's -v option to pass your hour offset (passed to ttsclock in -t) to each of your date calls at the top of the script. check it out.

--dan.

Ok, I fixed the bug with the timezones. Release 7 is available for download from http://www.zabaware.com/empeg

Cool! I'm downloading now...

-Z

Slight issue:

I have the latest version (unless the version in the download section is v6). My timezone is set to Eastern (-5) and I have the -t-5 command option set. However it's reading 1 hour behind than it really is. So if it's 10pm it will say its 9pm instead. I can set it to -t-4 so it will say it correctly, but I was just wondering if maybe there was something else I'm missing or doing wrong.

I tried to check that link you put up here for v7 but it appears to be down.

My guess is that it's a UTC and summer time issue. Right now, we're at 4 hours behind UTC until the end of October. So your correct time difference is -4.

I suppose there ought to be an option to fix for summer time.

DomoKun-
Quick question: how is the voice volume determined? It seems to vary. I assume it sets to the volume at the time of the previous shutdown.

[warning: feature request ahead!]
Is there any way this can be put to a fixed volume with an entry in the .ini file? Regardless of the last music volume, I like a nice moderate voice volume. Since there's no way to turn it down I've sometimes announced the time & date to the whole neighborhood. Of course that's usually Saturday morning and I had my system cranked up when I came home late Friday night...

The day/date fix works perfectly, btw, so big kudos for that!

jbradshw- Bitt's right. I'm EST also and I've got it set -4 due to Daylight Savings.

-Zeke

Your assumption is correct, it sets the volume to whatever it was at the last shutdown. It is fairly simple to change it to use a fixed volume yourself. Just follow these steps:

• Open the file "ttsclock" with a text editor. (If you use windows notepad then be aware that line breaks will appear as little boxes. Don't remove any of these boxes or add any returns.)
• Find the text "/drive0/var/setvol"
• Change it to "/drive0/var/setvol ##" (no quotes, where ## is a percent from 0 to 100 for the volume level)
• After saving this file, you can use the automatic installation script to reinstall your modification, or if you know how to manually upload and set permissions you can just update this 1 file.
  

The TTSClock program currently has no daylight savings code, so while the empeg player app will automatically adjust the time during time changes, the ttsclock program won't. Maybe I'll make an updated version before the next time change to have automatic daylight savings time changes.

One of the more recent hijack features is having a set boot up volume, which would probably solve your problem. Then again, you might like how it works now. One thing to keep in mind though is that it's rarely a good idea to have your system turned up when you park, as everyone in the area then knows that you've got something other than the factory stereo in there. You may live in a lower crime area than I do, however.

Matthew

Cool, thanks!

-Zeke

Naturalvoices.com gives me a wav, will it play with the pcmplay-program? Does anyone already have some german voices for this cool feature?

Rolf

This is super cool...

You guys seen/heard the new StrongBad Clock???

Gives me the illusion that I have a tuner and am listening to the news

Got a link to StrongBad clock?

-Zeke

StrongBad Clock

Hey Stupid! The time is... 11... 17... AM.

SuhWeeT! I want SB in my empeg.

-Zeke

In reply to:

---

Naturalvoices.com gives me a wav, will it play with the pcmplay-program? Does anyone already have some german voices for this cool feature?

---

Yeah I used the at&t natural voices engine to make the voice that it uses now. I used the program cool edit (www.cooledit.com) to convert WAV files to PCM. It must be upsampled to 16-bit 44.1 stereo in order to work with the pcmplay program. It'd be cool if you or someone else wanted to create other voices.

Found at http://www.prog-link.com/wav2pcm a program for conversion. But it doesn't work as expected. The switches 16 bit and 44.1 kHz won't be used in wav -> pcm.
After some tests I gave up. Would it be helpful to give you the texts for conversion?

Rolf

SuhWeeT! I want SB in my empeg.

Has anybody tried this yet? Is there some piece of software that could perhaps extract the sounds out of the Strong Bad Clock?

What's the sexiest voice to use with TTS Clock and is there any way to get it to speak the time other than at Ingition, what would be cool is a button in my car that fires TTS Clock (stops the music, speaks the time starts the music) I guess I could ask my Girlfriend to record some custom voice files, has anybody done that?
Gazz.

Can it be done more elegantly than getting SB to say the time 71 times for each 'mood' and then do .wav file editing? Mr. Bad may let use use the sounds if we ask really nicely...

-Zeke

Anyone ever persue getting the StrongBad voice for TTSClock?

Well he IS a member here... Shouldn't be too tough to get him in the studio to record some samples...

I have 90% of the sbemails in MP3 format on my empeg, but I think we'd be hard pressed to get good clock-worthy samples from them...

Did you see the StrongBad clock application in the first post of this thread?

Evidently not...

Everyone laffs at me now that my car radio says

"All Automotive systems are nominal. All Clear. Prepare To Drive" after it says the time and date.

How to upload the clock to an MK1 player ???

does anyone have tested it with the alpha 3 version?

does anyone have tested it with the alpha 3 version?

Yep,

initially had TTS Clock installed on 2.0/Hijack334, upgraded to 3.0a3 and tossed the latest Hijack (340) onto that - works fine.

/Michael

thanxx Michael!

now i just have to learn how to install it???

upgraded to 3.0a3 and tossed the latest Hijack (340) onto that - works fine

Hmm, hijack still works with the v3 alphas? I thought we where supposed to get upgraded to a 2.4 kernel (with ext3 support and updated drivers) as part of 3.0. Did that not make it?

-Mike

Not sure what the plan was/is, or what's hidden below (haven't had time to look very much at it), but Hijack 340 works fine with 3.0a3, just as Mark said at the meet.

/Michael

is there any other sound format that can be used instead of PCM?

thanxx

Tim

This is a great add on, now running hi-jack 3.40, 2.00, and the TTS r7. Nearly pulled my hair out as it wouldn't work, but then decided to open my eye and read the DEVELOPER version is needed. All sorted now though, as like everyone else with it, i'm looking for sound files.
What about Knight Rider Kit??

'Good Morning Michael'

I already added a small thingie to the script to play random voice files on start up. it's quite nice.

cool..... anything you would consider posting on the ttsclock page?... I have some cool movie sounds that would be perfect to have just before the time telling part...

edit: sorry JeepBastard... somehow i thought you were the original author of the ttsClock..... anyways.... anything you would like to release to the public?

just add a line to ttsclock script such as

cat /drive0/var/tts/start.pcm | /drive0/var/pcmplay

where start.pcm is the audio file you want to play after the time starts. you do it more elegantly, I'll post the one that selects a random audio file later today. I added as an atttachment to this post the one i use that I like a lot as an example.

cool.... thanks.... allthough.... your attachment didnt work.... I would really like to see the random script..... how you´ve done it....
I thought about it earlier today.... And I guess you have done so that I have to declare all PCM´s that I want randomized?...
No automatic searchstrings or something like that?...
I have quite alot of files that I would like to get randomized... But then again... I have to convert all of them to 44,1 kbps i guess? and I also have to convert them from wav to pcm.... bummer.... but what the hell..... What wouldnt I do to hear quotes from conan the barbarian every time I reboot the player...=)

I used to have start up sounds a while ago before I made the TTS Clock script. If you just want a single start up sound you can add a hijack config.ini entry like this (assuming you have TTS Clock installed which installed pcmplay for you):

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startupsound.pcm

For random sounds, you can create a bash script like this:

#!/bin/sh
number=$RANDOM
let "number %= 7"
case "$number" in
'0')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/shortcircuit.pcm
;;
'1')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/welcome.pcm
;;
'2')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/playgame.pcm
;;
'3')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/homeranykey.pcm
;;
'4')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/homer7dohs.pcm
;;
'5')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/hal9000.pcm
;;
'6')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/startup/butthead.pcm
;;
esac

Save the bash script as a unix style text file, give it permissions, and also call it from a config.ini entry.

Also if you do this, it would be a pretty good idea to run setvol from the config.ini before any of the custom sounds, as you probably don't want the volume to be 0 or 100%:

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/setvol

Heads up...TTSClock StrongBad files. I couldn't do anything about the date unless someone has the date wavs. I think you'll like it just the same.

Install TTSClock per the original instructions and before resetting to RO
Move the PCM files from the zip to your drive0\var\tts directory and the ttsclock file to drive0\var\ directory
reset to RO

This will replace the original am, pm, thetimeis, and ttsclock files.

Let me know if you get it working. I had a heck of time editing the file.

Yes!

Woohoo!

-Zeke

oh man i can't wait to get home and try this.

You legend... works for me!!

Awesome.

Cool, glad to hear it worked. Enjoy.

coool!!!..... thanks!......

This is seriously awesome. Now all we need is someone to whip up a good SB boot logo.

Ahh, thank you. I'll get around to installing this once I track down my box of cables in the garage.

Moving sucks. At least now I don't have to worry about moving again for a long while.

Did it last night... wow. The little touch of strongbad repremanding the standard voice for the date is genius. Good stuff man, good stuff.

Thanks, I got a kick out of it when I found the phrase. It took a little digging but it was worth it.

I'm glad you guys enjoy it.

You're welcome.

I know moving sucks but there's nothing like a it to reduce the amount of stuff that you have. How many times did you say "I can't believe how much crap I have"?

I can't believe how much crap I have"?

Several times. Probably due to moving a few boxes that hadn't been touched in the two years they sat in my basement. I'm going to empty a box a night of crap and trash what I don't want anymore. The move was a bit rushed, so I didn't have time beforehand to go through it all.

Alright have to cry uncle on this one. Anyone want to try convert this to a boot logo? I was trying to get an Empeg logo behind this with Strong Bad running across the screen but my pixel edit kung fu is weak.

5 minute job. try it.

Hey, that's pretty cool. Now what's the best way to recolor it so it doesn't lool like the invisible man running across the Empeg. jEmplode?

Did you try uploading it with Jemplode? I've got no idea what the repalatization will look like... probably pretty bad...

Yah, the colors all get converted to black with the 4 color pallete hence the invisible man comment. I'll try hand cooking something when I get more time. Thanks for combining it with the Empeg image.

For those of us who aren't unix/linux fluent, whats the best way to make the random sound bash script, and call it from config.ini?.
I'll try that SB hack later, its only been a week but i am getting bored of the generic woman!.

See DomoKuns post earlier in this thread for the content of the script;
substitute your own pcm-files as suitable. Note that the line
let "number %= 7"
uses 7 as the number of files you have. But the case construct goes from 0 to 6 as that is what the modulo operator (%=) returns.

Use a text editor that can save a file with unix style line endings, like EditPad or UltraEdit

Upload the file to a suitable directory, for instance /drive0/var. Then make the file executable (most GUI ftp clients have a graphical way of setting the rights. try right clicking the file on the empeg and look for "rights" or "permissions"). You need at least read and execute rights for owner (500). Typically you can use 755 (read/write/execute for owner, read/execute for group and others).

Edit your config.ini file and add a call to run your script. If you placed it in /drive0/var and named it randomsound.sh then it'll look like this
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/randomsound.sh

/Michael

Now this is the time to get brilliant and have it check conditions of the player and car and have it say something to that effect, such as checking the tempature of the player or reporting wether the player is operating off the battery or if the car is started and the car is operating off the alternator.

Cheers, i'll have a bash now.

What would be really cool is if you could make you cars check control system interact with the empeg. I have a temp, ave mpg,inst mpg, stopwatch, range, and avg speed on my car, if you could intercept the connection its viable, but very hard.

If you do a search on the phrase "OBD" you'll find, many, many threads along your line of thought. Executive summary: nothing's been implemented. Am I wrong folks?

-Zeke

Don't ask me how, but i managed to make my player un-bootable.
Copied and pasted the script, edited the file location to my own. converted the wavs to pcm, in the correct format.
Woundn't play a sound.
Gave permission for the script to have execute permission, and also the pcm files in the other directory.
Wouldnt play a sound.
Added
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/setvol
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/1.pcm
followed by
;@EXEC_ONCE/drive0/var/random.sh

Then wouldn't boot?
I've re-pumped the partition and having another go now with just the singular startup sound.

Okay got it working, re-installed hi-jack to configure, and its not bootable again.
hypertermed to it and foound its hanging on/after the

Hijack: intercepting config.ini
qSaved AC volume was 83
Volume=83
hijack_exec("/drive0/var/setvol"), rc=0 (okay)

So need to manually edit the config .ini from the hyperterm session.

Now have live player and hi-jack. Edited out the

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/setvol
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/1.pcm

Left in the
;@EXEC_ONCE/drive0/var/random.sh
Still no sounds though??

My Script looks like this

#!/bin/sh
number=$RANDOM
let "number %= 7"
case "$number" in
'0')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/1.pcm
;;
'1')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/2.pcm
;;
'2')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/3.pcm
;;
'3')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/4.pcm
;;
'4')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/5.pcm
;;
'5')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/6.pcm
;;
'6')
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/7.pcm
;;
esac
All paths look correct, all permissions look correct, and i have encoded the sounds using cooledit 2000 to be 44100, 16bit, stereo.

Config.ini looks like this
[synchronise]
seq_num=84
[hijack]
;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/random.sh
[tuner]
region=europe

drive0/var/random.sh is the script
drive0/var/startup/x.pcm are the sounds, 1-7

Anyone have any words of wisdom?, i'm getting some sleep, it might come to me in my sleep. I also apologise for my late night ramblings!!.

Now have live player and hi-jack. Edited out the

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/setvol

You need the setvol program, otherwise it will play your sounds muted. You can add a /dive0/var/setvol line to your script right after the #!/bin/sh line instead of calling it from hijack.

Left in the
;@EXEC_ONCE/drive0/var/random.sh

I don't know if this is the cause of it hanging, but I think you need a space in there after the ;@EXEC_ONCE command.

Also you should test your script from hyperterminal before making it a part of your bootup sequence. Just type /drive0/var/random.sh at the command prompt and it should play your sound. Only after it works there should you add it the config.ini.

Oh, and add an exit 0 line to the end of your script. That will tell hijack the script completed successfully. That was probably the cause of it hanging. I appologize for ommitting that from my previous post.

All done and working, as i'm not a native unix/linux programmer, its just clicked. Thanks for the pointers. I left the setvol out of the script as ran it just before it. One thing that did catch me out is that when you re-write the script, and re-upload, over the top, it re-sets the permissions. The hyperterm i should have done, but thought i'd run it without testing it, stupid mistake. Thanks for the pointers , and the script, hehe. I might try and have a play with the ttsclock script and try to modify it for something a bit funky.

right.. you wont be able to pull info fom the ODB without some hardware work. It's not incredibly hard, but you will have to then parse that data thru one of the ports on the empeg.

I am wondering if you can tell easily tho wether tyhe car is running or not running from the information sent down the power line

you wont be able to pull info fom the ODB without some hardware work

I'd be careful when messing with the ODB, I hear he carries his own "hardware"...

HAW HAW

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/1.pcm

I'm _guessing_ that this needed to be;
;@EXEC_ONCE "/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/startup/1.pcm"
Once you put it into the bash script the quotes are no longer needed.

Yep, that makes sense, bash script Vs config.ini. Now i have the hange of it i can get some interesting knightrider sounds sorted.
As for the ODB, you could use the ave speed, changing, or the inst mpg.

Mach, I've taken your audio pack and added the other two strongbad voices from strongbad clock.

See my post here or go directly to http://sandgnat.com/strongbadclock if you're interested.

And thanks DomoKun and Mach for the great work!

Chris

I think this talking clock is really neat. Especially when it's spoken by a woman in a soft voice.

How hard would it be to have a special greeting added to the start up sequence? Something like....Hello Coolsi, are we going for a ride? {spoken in a soft sultry voice}. Or Hello Coolsi, ready to push my buttons.

Would be pretty easy, once you got the soft sultry voice to say those words

1) Record hot chick sayng your words of choice
2) Use sox to convert to 44100hz 16bit stereo RAW format (

sox hotchick.wav -r 44100 -w -c 2 hotchick.raw

)
3) Rename hotchick.raw to hotchick.pcm (for consistency)
4) Upload hotchick.pcm to /drive0/var/tts
5) Modify /drive0/var/ttsclock similar to how the strongbad modification was made:

greeting="${ttsdir}greetings.pcm ${greeting}"

And here's the ladies to do it for you....

http://www.lovingvoice.com

And here's the ladies to do it for you..

ROFL!!! Amanda is my pick.

Nobby, or someone else

can you please post your final script? of the file and what you put into config.ini because my newbie programming skills suck and I would really like this feature in my empeg. been following this TTSClock r6 board and can't get it.

thanks

I've attched the PCM and wav file for my start up message

as resquested.

thanks that's a good one

When I try to DL attachment it says it doesn't exist...

>200k is probably the reason.

hi

as i live in switzerland and i'm not used to the AM/PM-clock, could it be possible to made a option for the ttsclock to use the 24hr format instead ?
or just an option to disable the AM/PM... because i think i now if it's 11 AM or PM :-D

greets
KoS

I've lost my copy of the StrongBad-Clock. The link here doesn't work anymore.
Could someone post it again, please? Or add it to riocar.org?

Thanks, Thomas

This should get it for you This has all the voices IIRC.