TTS

[kraemder]

I just got an ipad2 today to compliment my ipod touch and noticed the update.

It's working great on my ipad. I did the download and it said it had 1 error the 2nd try. the first try a lot of cards queued or something so i just waited and then pressed download again. I didn't know what to do - if I should wait for the queued cards to download or if it really meant they failed and I had to try again or something. It being a beta and all.

first few cards are working great. the tts quality seems good too. I have a Jap scansoft voice and I think she's about the same quality - I'll have to do a side by side comparison. But your TTS feature made it SO EASY to add sound to my cards I don't think I will bother with her ever again.

One thing I'm noticing on the ipad version is that the sound arrow is a little inconvenient when it's in the middle if you're holding the ipad in landscape mode. I just flipped it to portrait mode and I can conveniently tap it with my thumbs again so no biggie.

TTS = AWESOME

[norbert]

100% agreed!

[Ernie]

Thanks for the TTS feedback. I know the message and process can be a little confusing. I wanted to keep the message to a minimum, but basically the idea is... wait 30 seconds or so and press again after the sound files have been created. As for the error, this is not a beta thing, but you have a card that the TTS system can't convert for whatever reason. It doesn't tell you which one, but when you get to a card without sound, it may become clear why it couldn't convert it (e.g. It's Korean text instead of Japanese). Basically I need to provide some instructions to the user.

Sound arrow: you can move the arrow to the left or right: Global Options > Control > Advanced > Play Button Location
(I have too many options and bury some of them so it's not intimidating to the average user.)

[kraemder]

Ok I just broke out my old decks to compare voices and I prefer the neospeech ones. Part of that is that the volume is just recorded louder but I think they sound more real overall too. Great voices! And thanks for the heads up on the media play volume I like using the ipad in landscape.

[kraemder]

Ok feature request while I'm thinking about it. I'd like the option to enable or disable automatic playing of sound files (IE TTS) for each deck. For most decks I want the feature on and it's great. However, for decks with Kanji I'd prefer not to have it just read the pronunciation immediately.

[Ernie]

Did you know you can toggle auto-play on/off by double-tapping the sound play button?
I'll consider adding a by-deck option for this, but the double-tap should make it easy to turn on/off as desired.

[kraemder]

Nope didn't know. I do know the autoplay has mysteriously turned off every once in a while though so that was probably it...

btw I got a ton of errors on my latest deck I uploaded. My 1st deck had 1 error and 1 card had no sound. I couldn't figure out why it didn't but it was just 1 card so whatever. This one half the deck didn't work. I decided to use katakana alphabet for a lot of the words because my katakana abilities are lagging way behind my hiragana. It's not that the voice doesn't do katakana because it does... I don't know what the issue is. Here's the deck.

い stomach
あんぜん security, safety
あんあい to guide
いい to be good
いいえ no!
いう To say, to be called
いえ house, home
いかいよう stomach ulcer
いかが how?
いく to go
いくつ How many?
いくら How much?
いけばな flower arrangement
イギリス England
イシャ doctor
イッショニ together
イソガシイ to be busy
イソグ to be in a hurry
イジョ more than
イタイ to be painful
イチ one
イチニチ one day
イチニチジュ all day long
イツ when?
イツモ always
イナカ countryside
イヌ dog
イノチ life
イハン violation, infraction
イマ now
イミ meaning
イモオト my younger sister
イラッシャル to come, to go, to be, (high degree YOU)
イル to exist (animate beings)
イレル to put
イロ color
イワイ celebration

[kraemder]

I switched it back to mostly hiragana and it fixed most of the errors. It's down to 4 cards without speech - 4 errors. I can't see anything weird with them

いそぐ to be in a hurry
いちにちじゅ all day long
いはん violation, infraction
いわい celebration

[kraemder]

I thought it was a fluke so I made a new 4 card deck with those cards and got 4 errors. damn.

[Ernie]

Ah, you found a problem... which is my database is performing case insensitive searches and your text is matching up with some other existing text and causing problems. I'll get this fixed on my end and let you know when it's done.

Thanks,
Ernie

[Ernie]

Ok, I fixed it. Give it another try. Sorry about that. Your original text should have worked just fine.