Messages

1

Speech Technology / Dragon 9 and Hal Text to Speech not getting along

« on: December 02, 2007, 03:06:55 pm »

I am having trouble with the SAPI Config program getting my characters to lip synch. Basically, all characters, including expansion pack characters, will lip synch if I stick with the standard voice.  However, no characters will lip synch if I use an expansion pack voice. Error messages are produced when I try to use the SAPI tool.

It appears that either TTS and/or SAPI are crashing when using a dll found in the Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 software, a file called lhcom02w.dll

This same error has been linked to software crashes with Putty People and some Adobe products, always on computers with Dragon 9.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? I've tried reinstalling all of the products except Dragon 9 (which I'll do next).

My best guess is that version 9 of Dragon uses a modified lhcom02w.dll which does not mesh with a previous version that SAPI used. So, if there is no fix for this that I can do, is there a different text to speech program that I can use?

Here are more details:

When the Ultra Hal 6.1 boots up I get an error message:

When I run the Haptek SAPI Config program I get the same error:
"HapSAPISetup has encountered a problem and needs to close."

error signature:

AppName: hapsapisetup.ext  AppVer: 1.0.0.1  ModName: lhcom02w.dll
ModVer: 2.13.0.0  Offset 00018818

I get this error when switching to TTS:

Error 401:
Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed
Occurred at line 10
in Ultra Hal Assistant: frmRightClick.Form_MouseMove


What I tried:

erased the registry key and reinstalled 6.1
deleted and reinstalled the Character Expansion Pack.
Did a Repair of the Text to Speech Reader
deleted lhcom02w.dll (caused an immediate crash upon startup of HAL).
Added it back, same problem.
Deleted Text to Speech Reader.

new error:

Error 5:
Invalid procedure call or argument
Occured at line 30
in Ultra Hal Assistant: ReadWrite.INI.LoadOptions

Reinstalled Text to Speech Reader.

New error:

AppName: halreader.exe  appVer: 1.0.31  ModName: lhcom022.dll
ModVer: 2.13.0.0  Offset: 00018118

Removed Text to Speech Reader using the "remove" function on the CD version.

Rebooted.

Reinstalled TExt to Speech Reader yet again.

Same series of error messages:

AppName: halreader.exe  appVer: 1.0.31  ModName: lhcom022.dll
ModVer: 2.13.0.0  Offset: 00018118

Ran the Haptek SAPI Config program.  Got the error:
"HapSAPISetup has encountered a problem and needs to close."

error signature:

AppName: hapsapisetup.ext  AppVer: 1.0.0.1  ModName: lhcom02w.dll
ModVer: 2.13.0.0  Offset 00018818

2

Ultra Hal 7.0 / How do you get a character to plug in properly?

« on: December 01, 2007, 07:23:41 pm »

Well, that sounds like the problem allright. I'll buy a license.

3

Ultra Hal 7.0 / How do you get a character to plug in properly?

« on: December 01, 2007, 06:15:20 pm »

I've downloaded a number of characters. I put them in the same folder as the existing characters.  But they do not show up in the list of available plugins.  What am I doing wrong? I've closed and opened the program and even tried to substitute the new file for one that works, but it didn't work.

4

Speech Technology / Mic always on

« on: November 27, 2007, 11:41:17 am »

This topic is what I'm interested in.  The particular application I'd like is to simplify the whole microphone process. I've got a PC built for the sole purpose of running this software and am currently integrating it into my kitchen.  I'll try the plug in. My question is whether the plug in allows microphone control using just a keyboard. By that I mean mapping a particular key to toggle the mike on or off.  There will be little room for a mousing surface in a kitchen and a touchscreen monitor is extremely expensive.

And yes, the program does "listen to itself talk."  The resulting converstations are pretty odd.  Especially since the Microsoft voice recognition program (5.1) really does not work very well at all. But I've got a commercial program on order so hopefully that will be fixed.

5

Ultra Hal 7.0 / About time someone made this program!

« on: October 30, 2007, 03:13:39 pm »

I'm more than a little excited to see that somebody has put together a product with these capabilities.  I put together a small enterprise to try to do this more than a year ago using open source programs and they just were not up to the task.  Recognition rates were way too low to be at all functional.  Even if this is not perfect, it appears from a quick tour of the forum that there is a lot of input being solicited for improvements.  I'm just amazed that it took so long to get something like this launched.  I wrote an Eliza-type program in the '70s when I was a teenager that ran on a mainframe but I didn't even have access to a monitor. It was all on a printer. It worked, and tricked at least one kid (hint: add a lot of swear words to the vocabulary) but I was confident that its capabilities would be quickly exceeded. I was wrong.  Now I have gray hair and have moved on to other things.  But maybe this will open the door to real AI development of the sort that I'm looking for. I will see.