Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Mary voices

[JayKon]

I found the file Sp5TTIntXP.exe
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&DisplayLang=en)
which is suposed to contain the Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Mary voices for
the Text-to-speech program.

I downloaded the file and ran it, but all it does is to exctract the file:
Sp5TTIntXP.Msm

I can find no other files on my system with that extension and no
instructions on what to do with the file once I have it.

I really hope this is a simple thing, as I would really like something other
than Microsoft Sam.

Thanks,
Jay

[William DePalo [MVP VC++]]

Post by JayKon
I found the file Sp5TTIntXP.exe
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&DisplayLang=en)
which is suposed to contain the Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Mary voices for
the Text-to-speech program.
Sp5TTIntXP.Msm
I can find no other files on my system with that extension and no
instructions on what to do with the file once I have it.
I really hope this is a simple thing, as I would really like something other
than Microsoft Sam.

It is a "merge module" which is used by developers to create a "package"
(.msi file) of their own components along with those of MS for deployment on
end user machines by Windows' installer.

If I understand you correctly, it hardly matters, though, because MS Mike,
Mary and Sam all have a robotic quality to their voices. Vista will do
better TTS out of the box. Until then, there is a cottage industry of
vendors who sell SAPI compliant voices:

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx

Regards,
Will

[JayKon]

You are correct.

Thank you for the information, may yet be usefull.

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]

Post by JayKon
I found the file Sp5TTIntXP.exe
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&DisplayLang=en)
which is suposed to contain the Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Mary voices for
the Text-to-speech program.
Sp5TTIntXP.Msm
I can find no other files on my system with that extension and no
instructions on what to do with the file once I have it.
I really hope this is a simple thing, as I would really like something other
than Microsoft Sam.

It is a "merge module" which is used by developers to create a "package"
(.msi file) of their own components along with those of MS for deployment on
end user machines by Windows' installer.
If I understand you correctly, it hardly matters, though, because MS Mike,
Mary and Sam all have a robotic quality to their voices. Vista will do
better TTS out of the box. Until then, there is a cottage industry of
http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx
Regards,
Will

[Billy Zane]

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]
If I understand you correctly, it hardly matters, though, because MS Mike,
Mary and Sam all have a robotic quality to their voices. Vista will do
better TTS out of the box.

Actually it depends on what you are doing. I have an internal IE hosted app
that does status type announcements and Mary sounds great. She is the only
one that sounds good I have to admit. It is still SAPI 4 since we need the
safe for scripting control. The javascript does a try/catch and points them
to our download page for spchapi.exe and msttsf22l.exe

[William DePalo [MVP VC++]]

Post by Billy Zane
Actually it depends on what you are doing.

Right.

Post by Billy Zane
I have an internal IE hosted app that does status type announcements and
Mary sounds great. She is the only one that sounds good I have to admit.
It is still SAPI 4 since we need the safe for scripting control. The
javascript does a try/catch and points them to our download page for
spchapi.exe and msttsf22l.exe

Well, every one of the MS voices is perfectly understandable. But I doubt
that any native English speaker will confuse the voice with that of a real
person.

Regards.
Will

[Billy Zane]

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]
Well, every one of the MS voices is perfectly understandable. But I doubt
that any native English speaker will confuse the voice with that of a real
person.

I didn't realize that was everyone's objective... how silly of me.

[William DePalo [MVP VC++]]

Post by Billy Zane

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]
Well, every one of the MS voices is perfectly understandable. But I doubt
that any native English speaker will confuse the voice with that of a
real person.

I didn't realize that was everyone's objective... how silly of me.

:-)

I used to think that the important thing about a synthetic voice was that it
was easily understood. That's very logical and I am a geek who is nothing if
not logical.

What I found out in doing demos to prospective clients, though, was that I
was dismissed out of hand whenever I used the MS voices.

The suits just could not comprehend the fact that the quality of a synthetic
voice and the quality of an application that uses a synthetic voice are not
related. (Suits often have difficulty differentiating form from substance,
but I digress. <g>) On the other hand, if I demo the same application with a
more natural sounding voice the discussion tends to focus on my application.

I don't work for them, and I'm not an investor in the company, but the 30
bucks I spent at www.cepstral.com has paid dividends for me.

Regards,
Will
www.IVRForBeginners.com (telephony and speech without tears)

[Billy Zane]

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]
I used to think that the important thing about a synthetic voice was that
it was easily understood. That's very logical and I am a geek who is
nothing if not logical.
What I found out in doing demos to prospective clients, though, was that I
was dismissed out of hand whenever I used the MS voices.

Again you are assuming what people are making... I made an addin for a
company's custom message board utility that just announces when their people
are "Online", "Offline", "Busy", etc. The company loved it with Mary's
voice! A simple app with a small, simple vocabulary works fine with less
quality voices. That said I agree that sometimes it is worth it and very
necessary to spend the money. For me now, developing a similar freeware app
for another task, I have to use free voices. Luckily it also has a simple
vocabulary of very short messages and sounds more than OK with Mary's voice.

[liquidpaper]

Actually the voice itself is not what makes it 'robotic' it is the engine
that is used to make the voice. the one with the vista is obviously better (I
FOUND SOMETHING THAT MAKES VISTA BETTER!!!). The application can either tell
the computer straight up read this, or (as I'm working on) have it tell the
computer the pitch, flux, speed, volume, pauses, and several other things
that could make it extremely realistic if the programmer did it right. I'm
just interested in something different than Microsoft Anna. But Anna is much
better sounding than Microsoft Sam was on XP.

Post by William DePalo [MVP VC++]

Post by JayKon
I found the file Sp5TTIntXP.exe
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&DisplayLang=en)
which is suposed to contain the Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Mary voices for
the Text-to-speech program.
Sp5TTIntXP.Msm
I can find no other files on my system with that extension and no
instructions on what to do with the file once I have it.
I really hope this is a simple thing, as I would really like something other
than Microsoft Sam.

It is a "merge module" which is used by developers to create a "package"
(.msi file) of their own components along with those of MS for deployment on
end user machines by Windows' installer.
If I understand you correctly, it hardly matters, though, because MS Mike,
Mary and Sam all have a robotic quality to their voices. Vista will do
better TTS out of the box. Until then, there is a cottage industry of
http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx
Regards,
Will

[William DePalo [MVP VC++]]

Post by liquidpaper
The application can either tell
the computer straight up read this, or (as I'm working on) have it tell the
computer the pitch, flux, speed, volume, pauses, and several other things
that could make it extremely realistic if the programmer did it right.

If you are saying that you can take a sub par voice like Mike or Mary or Sam
and use XML markup to change it's attributes and if you are expecting major
improvement then you'd be mistaken

Post by liquidpaper
I'm just interested in something different than Microsoft Anna. But
Anna is much better sounding than Microsoft Sam was on XP.

Right, she's a better voice.

Regards,
Will