Sometimes, it is difficult to understand what Michelle is actually asking for.
Although Test-To-Speech (TTS) technologies have come a long way over the past few years, it is
sometimes difficult to understand what Michelle is actually asking for; especially if your native tongue
is not English.
Solution... Use a different TTS engine!
There are a number of approaches to resolving this issue. The first thing that comes to mind
is to use a better TTS engine than the default ones provided by Microsoft. Well, yes and no.
Naturally, one of our major design considerations was to make the product as wide-reaching as possible.
Not all users can afford to spend $100 for a new TTS engine.
So, why not make the TTS Engines configurable?
A logical resolution is to permit those users who have a more-improved TTS engine to use theirs.
However, this presents a BIG problem. Regrettably, the problem I faced (and continue to face), is that
every speech engine pronounces phrases differently... VERY differently, in fact. As an example,
let's take the word "LOCALIZER". In FS9 using "Mary", I needed to re-write the text as "LOCAL EYESER",
whereas in FSX using a different female voice, I needed to use, "LOCAL ISER". The same holds true for
MANY of these aircraft phonics. So, until I can figure out how to get around all of this, I'm afraid we're
stuck with the default TTS engines.
How About Another Solution?
After thinking about this for some time, I decided to put Michelle's questions up on the screen
in the FS Message Bar. Ah ha! I feel that this is a logical work around and will certainly help
our users whose native language is not English.
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