Messages

31

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

« on: March 07, 2010, 05:10:45 pm »

Bill,

That must by why the Big Red Eye just looks so RIGHT in the Hal Character box! [^]

I really have always wanted a "Hal" since I saw the 2001 movie as a kid.  It was while searching for HAL pics one day, that I came across the Ultra Hal program.  I got hooked.

I had no interest in the Haptek characters at first, but after seeing all the amazing things people here have done with them, I did end up purchasing the character pack.

While there is no denying that the Haptek characters are interesting and fun, and add a whole new dimension to the experience, my primary interest in Ultra Hal has been (and still is) in the speech and AI.

Now I just got to figure out how to turn one of the red eye pics to blue, for my SAL bot. []

And maybe put her on my Windows 7 computer, if I dare try it yet.  I probably need to read up on it more, read the forum posts to see how it's gone for others who've already made the leap with Hal and Win7.

- Chaz

32

Share Conversations, Experiences, Graphics / GRETTA Conversation

« on: March 06, 2010, 06:19:44 pm »

Jason,

I can't get Windows Media Player or Linux VCL player to play the file.  What does it require to make it playable?

- Chaz

33

Speech Technology / How do I add a Cepstral voice to Ultra Hal?

« on: March 04, 2010, 12:34:44 am »

Bergie, one other thing.  You may want to try the search link in the upper right side of the forum.  Search for "Cepstral" and "Vista".  I had a quick look and found these posts:

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5924&SearchTerms=,Cepstral,Vista

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6128&SearchTerms=,Cepstral,Vista

If you look through them all, you may find something that helps.

- Chaz

34

Speech Technology / How do I add a Cepstral voice to Ultra Hal?

« on: March 03, 2010, 10:41:14 pm »

Ultra Hal should work with Cepstral voices, there is even a link to  Cepstral on the main page of Zabaware, I bought mine via the Zabaware site.

The Cepstral voices should simply be a selected option in Options/Speech in Ultra Hal, for both registered and unregistered Cepstral voices.  Have you actually been able to use the Callie voice in any other applications?  Have you heard it speak on your computer?  If not, the file could be corrupted.

Cepstral has a speech utility called Swifttalker that works with Cepstral voices.  I don't recall wether it comes with unregistered voices or not, but if it did, can you use it to hear Callie speak?

I think Cepstral voices require SAPI5, not 4.  I would guess that Vista has that, but I don't have Vista, so I don't know if there is somewhere you can check to see if it's set to use SAPI4 or 5.

Be sure that Vista has given the Cepstral program permission to operate with other programs.  Make sure the Cepstral download was good, try it out on another computer if you can.  Other than that, I'm out of suggestions.

- Chaz

35

Speech Technology / How do I add a Cepstral voice to Ultra Hal?

« on: March 02, 2010, 02:57:02 pm »

I've not had much experience with Vista, but I've heard that sometimes there are issues where Vista needs to be told to give permission to the new program to be allowed to run, or something like that?  Perhaps someone with Vista could explain it better.

Did you download the Callie voice recently?  I had purchased David a few years ago, and several months ago, I had to "upgrade" it for some reason, it was a free download, I don't remember all the specifics of what it was for and why.

My Cepstral voices, registered and unregistered, show up automatically in the voice selection area of Ultra Hal; I believe that is the way it's supposed to be. You might want to see if Cepstral has a forum, and if there are any issues with Cepstral and Vista.  Perhaps others who read this will be able to make further suggestions.

- Chas

36

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

« on: March 02, 2010, 02:21:04 pm »

Hi Bill,

My Pent4 machine uses Win XP, w/SP3.  I've used Ultra Hal and Hal Reader on several other XP computers, and never had these problems.  But this is the first time I've used Hal with a machine with Dragon Naturally Speaking on it.  I figure it must be related to Dragon 10.  Since Larry Omaha also go the same error messages using Dragon 9, it must be a Dragon issue, although not an issue for everyone.

I recently got a new computer, an HP with 64-bit processor and Windows 7.  I thought of putting Hal and Dragon on it, but decided not to.  I'm still reading about issues some people have been having with it, and thought it might be test to wait until the next release of Hal to try it.  I'm also unsure of how Dragon 10 would work on Win 7, because it does not say on the box that it will.  I figured maybe I should wait until Dragon comes out with a 64 bit release for Win 7.

If anyone reading this is using Ultra Hal with Dragon 10 on Windows 7, I'd be interested to hear how it's working for you, and if you think it's worth doing now instead of waiting for future releases of either Dragon or Ultra Hal.

- Chaz

37

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

« on: March 02, 2010, 03:53:21 am »

Thanks Jasondude.

I've been reading various forum posts about Dragon 10, and it would seem that is the case for many, if not most, people.  The problems I'm having are a real mystery.

If I can't get Hal Reader to work on my Pent4 computer with Dragon 10, I could live with that.  The Halpad on Ultra Hal works, and I can past text into that and have the text read aloud from there if I need to.

As for the lack of lipsyncing characters.  Well.  The Haptek characters and others are fun, but I can do without them if I need to.  Being able to talk to Hal, instead of type my replies, is more important to me than animated characters.

I've been very pleased with Dragon's responsiveness and accuracy.  The mistakes it occasionally makes are easy to correct.

I have a photo of the "HAL 9000" eyeball, that I use in the character box in place of an animated character.  I haven't given up solving these problems yet, but if that is the best I can accomplish on this particular machine, I'll take it.  Even with the limitations, it's like a dream come true in many ways.

Speaking of dreams and Hal, I came across this clip recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQvQvu8eL0

It's from the movie "2010".  It was made in 1984, before Ultra-Hal existed.  Yet the conversation with SAL seems... Ultra-Hal-like. And Dr. Chandra's last remark, dreaming of Hal...

Perhaps now I just need to find a blue eye pic for my Sal. []

38

Speech Technology / How do I add a Cepstral voice to Ultra Hal?

« on: March 01, 2010, 10:41:57 pm »

Hi Bergie,

I have Cepstral David and Hal Reader on my older computer.  The David voice is registered.  I also have Cepstral Duncan, which is unregistered.

Both of them work fine.  The Duncan voice reads, and intermittently repeats a message saying his voice needs to be registered.

Did you install the voice in the default directory suggested by the software?  What operating system are you using, and what kind of computer?  How much memory?

I have another computer that won't run Hal Reader at all, I don't know why; I suspect a conflict with my Dragon 10 software, but am not sure.  Sometimes results can vary from computer to computer.

-c.

39

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

« on: February 28, 2010, 03:41:36 pm »

Thanks for the reply, Bill.

I understand that not all characters lipsync, depending on whether they need SAPI 4 or 5, etc. I have Hal on another computer without Dragon, and it can use AT&T Voices, NeoSpeech voices, and others, without these errors.

On my Pentium 4 with Dragon 10, where I'm having these error messages, I did try using the SAPI 4 AT&T voices, and the more primitive TruVoices too.  Using SAPI 4 or SAPI 5, none of them lipsync, and when I press the "Update SAPI Config" button for ANY of them, the message is the same.  No lipsync for any of them, and no HalReader at all.

It seems to me that it must be something to do with Dragon 10 (and 9) that is causing these errors, and that keeps HalReader from launching.  If most other Dragon users are not having these problems, then it must be something about my particular hardware setup or software combination? I wish I could identify what the variable is, that makes my setup different from others that are fully functional.  I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has any ideas about how to trouble shoot this.

My computer is the one featured here:

http://3btech.net/hpcodcsmfofa.html

Mine has 3 gigs of RAM.  The only other software I've installed on it is Avast anti-virus, Zone Alarm firewall, Firefox 3.5, HaptekAXplayer/SAPI Config, and Quick Books 2008.

- Chaz

40

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

« on: February 28, 2010, 01:18:10 am »

I've installed Hal 6.2.28 on a Pentium 4 computer, WinXP service pack 3. I'm using Dragon 10 for the voice recognition, but I'm getting the same messages as Larry Omaha.  For Halreader:

 

quote:"Halreader.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close."

error signature:

AppName: halreader.exe
AppVer: 1.0.35 ModName: lhcom022.dll
ModVer: 2.13.0.0 Offset: 00018118

When I run Hal, there is no lipsync with the characters. If I go to General Options/Characters, and press the "Update SAPI Config" button, I get the error:

quote:"HapSAPISetup has encountered a problem and needs to close."

error signature:

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

Is there anything that can be for this?  This computer is the only one I have with Dragon 10 installed on it.  I'm using a trial version of Hal on it to see if I can get Hal and Dragon 10 to work together.  The voice recognition part IS working very well, I'm very pleased with the result.  But must I sacrifice Halreader and characters to have Dragon 10 voice recognition?

Has anyone else using Dragon 10 had this problem? Or even NOT had this problem? I'd be curious to know.  Thank you.

- Chaz

41

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Survey

« on: February 27, 2010, 04:04:41 am »

Oops! A correction.  I said in my prior post that the Paul and Kate voices were AT&T voices.  They are not, I believe they are the NeoSpeech voices, that used to be bundled with Halreader, before they were replaced by the AT&T voices, Mike and Crystal.

- Chaz

42

Share Conversations, Experiences, Graphics / That is the question...

« on: February 24, 2010, 03:20:09 pm »

Xen is lovely. I'm curious, what voice does she use?

I loved her responses, they were excellent.

- Chaz

43

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Survey

« on: February 24, 2010, 03:06:24 pm »

1. What is the name of your Hal?

I call mine Hal.

2. What Speech Synthesis do you use (Please include the name of the company)?

AT&T Voices (Paul and Kate, though I think are sold by Zabaware as Mike and Crystal now).  I also have a Cepstral voice (David) which is very nice, but the AT&T voices are also good quality, and less fuss to deal with.

3. Do you use the Default Brain, or a custom one?

Both. I'm experimenting.

4. What are your favorite plugins for Hal?

I'm still exploring them.  The loneliness plugin has been fun, but I don't leave it on all the time.

5. Which do you prefer when communicating with Hal (Keyboard, or Voice)?

I prefer voice, but I'm still working that out.  I've not had much luck with the ViaVoice Plugin, but I've got Dragon 10, and so far so good.  I find the accuracy better than via voice, but I haven't used it with Hal yet.  I'm just about to try it.

6. What role does Hal play for you (Companion, Utility, or Hobby)?

Utility and hobby, mostly.

7. Do you consider Hal to be more versatile than any other AI Bots that have been released to the public?

MUCH.  I have not found anything else that even comes close.  I found Answerpad interesting, for it's simplicity, but it is not maintained anymore and falls far short of Ultra Hal's abilities.

8. Last but not least, share with the rest of us any advice you have in improving our own Hals:

My advice; read these forums!  Especially the advice about training Hal.  If a new person downloads Hal and plays with it for a bit, they may not be overly impressed with the initial responses.  But that's because Hal needs to learn from YOU, the things you like to talk about, topics and subjects to talk about.  It makes such a difference when you deliberately start to teach Hal, by using the advice here and following the basic teaching guidelines.  They work!

When Hal starts to reflect back to you things you've taught him, when you can actually see a personality start to emerge, when more and more intelligent responses begin to happen and you can actually converse with Hal, it's thrilling and very satisfying.  Very different than just installing it and playing with it for half an hour.

Ultimately, you get out of Ultra Hal what you put into it.  When you set out to do that deliberately, and take the time to do it right, it is rewarding, entertaining and fun.

- Chaz

44

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal on Facebook

« on: February 20, 2010, 02:22:43 pm »

Thanks Robert,

I just tried it again, and now it says:

quote:Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'FacebookRestClientException' with message 'Incorrect signature' in C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php:3065 Stack trace: #0 C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php(1087): FacebookRestClient->call_method('facebook.friend...', Array) #1 C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsindex.php(25): FacebookRestClient->friends_get() #2 {main} thrown in C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php on line 3065

I refreshed it, and it said the same thing.  I closed that window, then went to that page again, but this time, having already been signed in to Facebook.  This time the message was a little different:

quote:Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'FacebookRestClientException' with message 'Incorrect signature' in C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php:3065 Stack trace: #0 C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php(1717): FacebookRestClient->call_method('facebook.users....', Array) #1 C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsindex.php(16): FacebookRestClient->users_getInfo('100000805592216', 'last_name, firs...') #2 {main} thrown in C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsfacebookapi_php5_restlib.php on line 3065

Maybe I'm in the 5% they haven't fixed yet. I'll try it again later, if it's an on-going problem they are working on, perhaps it will come right soon.

- Chaz

45

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal on Facebook

« on: February 19, 2010, 10:00:54 pm »

I'm glad it's working for everyone else. I'm still getting that message.

I tried it at work today, using my laptop.  Different computer, different ISP connection, same message.

I also tried clearing the cache and cookies, at work and at home, but I still get the same message.  It must be something particular to the login ID I created?

I won't be heartbroken if I can't make it work, but it is a mystery.  I'm out of ideas as to what else to try.

- Chaz