New MetCom Voice

[Toneslider12]

South Metro Fire has decided to upgrade station alerting and move forward with the First-In system made by Westnet. On Feb 6th "Lola" the computer voice made by Locution will no longer be used and a new male voice will be. Lola was actually thousands of voice files recorded by a real person and strung together by computer. The new system will simply be text to speech so pronunciation may be incorrect for a while. The new voice is sometimes being tested on MetCom Ops 7 or Ops 15 for anyone interested.

 

[rdrunnermedic]

South Metro Fire has decided to upgrade station alerting and move forward with the First-In system made by Westnet. On Feb 6th "Lola" the computer voice made by Locution will no longer be used and a new male voice will be. Lola was actually thousands of voice files recorded by a real person and strung together by computer. The new system will simply be text to speech so pronunciation may be incorrect for a while. The new voice is sometimes being tested on MetCom Ops 7 or Ops 15 for anyone interested.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I guess that explains why they've been using actual (human) dispatchers for the past couple of nights?

 

[Spitfire8520]

Will be sad to see "Lola" go, made national news at once point of its career. Is the new voice more understandable/clear compared to the current system?

 

[Toneslider12]

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I guess that explains why they've been using actual (human) dispatchers for the past couple of nights?

Yes, during the change over "Lola" is only operational some of the time so the dispatchers are airing calls.

Will be sad to see "Lola" go, made national news at once point of its career. Is the new voice more understandable/clear compared to the current system?

In my opinion the new voice is actually more difficult to understand but it should improve as time goes on.

 

[fireemt55]

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About 6 years was a pretty good run for Lola! Will they be holding a naming contest for the new guy like they did for Lola? Personally I liked the actual dispatching of units as a dispatcher, but it is generally more efficient to have the automated system do it...especially when everyone and their brother is calling 911 for a fender bender and there is only 2 of you working!

 

[abqscan]

WooHoo, hopefully I won't hear this ever again, "refer to pager for address."

 

[jimmnn]

My vote for the new voice would be Raymond or maybe Jose sounds deep and well, listen for yourself.

Jim<

 

[MFRD8539]

Any idea why they are replacing Locution?

 

[Toneslider12]

Any idea why they are replacing Locution?

When Parker & South Metro formed their authority Parker had First-In alerting and South Metro had Locution. Since they were paying for two seperate systems the Authority chose to continue using only one and chose First-In.

First-In offers a lot of great features for the firehouses. LED lights indicate which unit has a call based on color. Each bunk room can have the ability to only get tones for one apparatus rather than all of them in the station... For example a firefighter on an Engine won't wake up for tone if the Medic in the station gets alerted. Muting remotes can be installed to automatically mute the TV and stereo when an alert is sent. The speakers in the truck bay measure sound level and adjust volume accordingly so the tone can be heard. Call information can pop up on TV screens and scrolling message signs etc etc.