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A lot of these systems — those which build phrases from audio fragments — seem like the bastard love child of miserly bean counters and software engineers being

A lot of these systems — those which build phrases from audio fragments — seem like the bastard love child of miserly bean counters and software engineers being too smart. For variable data — delayed by $N minutes — sure, building that from pieces of audio makes sense. For the name of a service though — “The service from $start_station to $end_station” — it’s not necessary to go all in on O(n) vs O(n^2) and record individual station names and put the word “to” in between. While a computer scientist will baulk at the inefficiency, a designer will optimise for the end result and record every route pair because (i) it sound much better and (ii) the problem scales quadratically where n is the number of railway stations you have built, a number which is bounded and grows extremely slowly. You could record every route name in a day, guarantee it. This example is a bit contrived because most announcement only say the name of the destination station but it applies to a lot of other audio announcement systems where “clever programming” and “cheap out on recording studio fees” were optimised over “make it sound good”.

thenthenthen 4y ago
An example of this can be observed in the newer Dutch slow trains (called ‘sprinters’). They seen to have changed the recorded voice (“the train to $destination will arrive at $time”) to some sort of a computer assemblage that sounds like they’re constructing sentences from syllables resulting in very strange and sometimes hilarious emphasis and off sounding timing on certain syllables. What a mess
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure the TFL buses in London have voice announcements built in the same way, as some of the stop names are pronounced really strangely.
lbriner 4y ago
I don't agree. over 4000 messages on the list, so clearly, splitting these out individually producing what? 20K+ messages? not what you could record properly in a single day with concentration, breaks etc. If you look at the examples, they record them with different emphasis so they can appear in different positions in a sentence and sound natural enough that you can hardly notice. In the last 10 years, I don't think I have heard any of these in the UK that sounded like you describe. We all know the voice is a robot anyway so as long as it is understandable, it's fine.
Symbiote 4y ago
If trains are involved, someone is sufficiently nerdy to have uploaded it to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxw8p7oo_3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxw8p7oo_3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpUsoIPBsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpUsoIPBsc (much better recording but not Scotland). I think they're all nicely understandable, and the slight robotic-ness aids comprehension, and makes it easier to ignore the routine announcements (once on the train) but still notice an unusual one. Also note the usual announcement on the station is something like this: > The next train at platform [1] will be the [delayed] [16:40] service to Airbles, calling at Hamilton Central, Hamilton West, Blantyre, Newton, Cambuslang, Rutherglen, Dalmarnok, Bridgeton, Argyle Street, Glasgow Central, Balloch, calling at Anderston, Exhibition Centre, Partick, Hyndland, Jordanhill, Scotstounhill, Garscadden, Yoker, Clydebank, Dalmuir, Kilpatrick, Bowling, Dunbarton East, Dunbarton Central, Dalreoch, Renton, Alexandria and Balloch. [We apologize for the delay to this service, which was caused by] [the recorded announcement not being ready.] Then you get "The train now approaching platform 1 is the ..." and "This is the ..." On the train itself, you get "This is the ..."

thenthenthen 4y ago

An example of this can be observed in the newer Dutch slow trains (called ‘sprinters’). They seen to have changed the recorded voice (“the train to $destination will arrive at $time”) to some sort of a computer assemblage that sounds like they’re constructing sentences from syllables resulting in very strange and sometimes hilarious emphasis and off sounding timing on certain syllables. What a mess

Jaruzel 4y ago
I'm pretty sure the TFL buses in London have voice announcements built in the same way, as some of the stop names are pronounced really strangely.

lbriner 4y ago

I don't agree. over 4000 messages on the list, so clearly, splitting these out individually producing what? 20K+ messages? not what you could record properly in a single day with concentration, breaks etc. If you look at the examples, they record them with different emphasis so they can appear in different positions in a sentence and sound natural enough that you can hardly notice. In the last 10 years, I don't think I have heard any of these in the UK that sounded like you describe. We all know the voice is a robot anyway so as long as it is understandable, it's fine.

Symbiote 4y ago

If trains are involved, someone is sufficiently nerdy to have uploaded it to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxw8p7oo_3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxw8p7oo_3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpUsoIPBsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpUsoIPBsc (much better recording but not Scotland). I think they're all nicely understandable, and the slight robotic-ness aids comprehension, and makes it easier to ignore the routine announcements (once on the train) but still notice an unusual one. Also note the usual announcement on the station is something like this: > The next train at platform [1] will be the [delayed] [16:40] service to Airbles, calling at Hamilton Central, Hamilton West, Blantyre, Newton, Cambuslang, Rutherglen, Dalmarnok, Bridgeton, Argyle Street, Glasgow Central, Balloch, calling at Anderston, Exhibition Centre, Partick, Hyndland, Jordanhill, Scotstounhill, Garscadden, Yoker, Clydebank, Dalmuir, Kilpatrick, Bowling, Dunbarton East, Dunbarton Central, Dalreoch, Renton, Alexandria and Balloch. [We apologize for the delay to this service, which was caused by] [the recorded announcement not being ready.] Then you get "The train now approaching platform 1 is the ..." and "This is the ..." On the train itself, you get "This is the ..."