quote: James Kulaprathazhe

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Are there any special people we can hire for this? Or any other way (invention) digital or any software-that we can type in words by words and computer will answer in correct voice?

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Yes to both... it's all a matter of money. You can certainly hire a voiceover professional, or maybe an announcer from a local radio station. My question though, is why would you want to? IMO, the vast majority of your customers already know you exist, and are only calling to find out what's playing tonight. These days, additional detail only ties up phone lines.

We have some theatres around here that read an entire synopsis about each show they have... auuugh! A web site is perfect for that kind of stuff!
 

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Posted by Michael Dolan (Member # 4808) on 06-08-2008, 06:30 PM:
 
WE don't have a recording at our drive in. But we found that if we make a link in our website to have people give us thier email it works alot better and many of our customers love it. We get our customers email either from our website or collecting it while they are at the theater. from there we actual email everybody a weekly line up on wed. between 4-5pm. The line up also shows the new movies we are getting sometimes aweek in advance. at the same time we attach some coupons and some advertisements.

Our customers really have commented that they love it. and its great advertisment too. and you never have to wait on a phone line.

Give it a try. We started this in March with no emails and now we are up to 986. and our town population is only around 2,000
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 06-08-2008, 06:32 PM:
 
There is a website online which demos one of these web programs which features an animated avatar (a cartoon image) which has eye movement that follows your cursor. You can type in text and this animated thing will speak it, moving its mouth in sync with the speech. There is any number of different voices you can choose -- male, female, English accent male, and female, etc.

The purpose of this site is to get you to buy this module to put into your website and have it speak to your visitors. Nice gimmic, but the thing is, you can easily use it to speak your telephone announcement message. The female voice is very natural and you can make it say anything you want. Of course all the guys around the office were making this female say the most obscene things about our boss (men will always be children when it comes to stuff like that).

There is also allot of specific software out there that will do the same thing as well: NaturalSoft - Text-to-Speech and AT&T Labs, Inc Research Put some text (limited amount in these demos)into the demo and you'll be surprised at how natural they've gotten these text-to-speech programs to sound. Only occasionally they have the digital glitchy sound, but by spelling words phonetically you can smooth out much of the rough spots.

But they again, why would anyone need to go through all that trouble -- surely in even the most humble operation they can find SOMEONE who can read and speak English! Isn't this taught in school -- isn't it the native language for most people? Just seek out the individual who has a decent enough command of the English language so they can be clearly understood and let them read the Movie Schedule.

All of the above demo links do have a limited amount of text you can put in at once. If you don't have the budget to buy the full programs (NaturalSpeech is 50 bucks), then you can patch paragraphs together in any free audio editor.

If anyone is interested, when I get back to the office I'll see if I can find the website avatar program link. I believe it allows more text entry than the other two above. And the female voice is very natural sounding in it. Thing is, because it is not just a text-to-speech program but has that animation thing going on, which I am sure is very sophisticated getting it to lip-sync with the voice, it probably costs a bundle.
 

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 06-08-2008, 07:37 PM:
 
What does it take to get a theater express code with Fandango for their 1-800-FANDANGO service?
 

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Posted by Thomas Pitt (Member # 4322) on 06-09-2008, 01:37 AM:
 
Since it's rather expensive to hire a professional announcer to read out things for the recorded messages, most cinemas just have one of the members of staff (the one with the clearest voice) doing the recording. Many use a computerized system where once you've done the initial recording, you only have to record the names of the latest movies, and enter the showtimes on a computer. Everything else is done with samples played back from the computer.

If it's a huge cinema chain, they may be able to afford a professional announcer to record everything for their centralized booking line. VUE cinemas in the UK do that; they have one central line that allows you to get showtimes and film information for every VUE site in the UK, as well as booking the films over the phone.

The VUE line even uses speech recognition techniques to get basic information before putting you through to the relevant cinema booking line! But I haven't had very good experiences with the voice recognition system:

"Please say the location of the cinema you wish to book at."
Me: "Sheffield."
"Dronfield - is this correct? Please say Yes or No."
Me: "No."
"Now booking at cinemas in the Dronfield area..."
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-09-2008, 02:20 AM:
 
Unfortunately we are not big enough to justify an expensive system, but we do have a 4 line digital system. The system has enough memory that I can make a 5 minute recording which gives me plenty of time to take my time and not rush it.

One of the biggest issues is you want to answer many of the most common questions so that you don't receive as many calls to the cinema, but doing so causes the recording to be extra long. What I try to do is just tease things like Friday openings at the beginning and then give full info toward the end. I also list our web site first.

I used to record the message on the computer and then output it to the machine. I would do it in pieces so I only had to actually do the new showtimes and ratings info each week. This also allowed me to do the recording at a time when I was more fresh and made it so I didn't have to talk for 4 minutes straight without making a mistake. Now I will sometimes use one of the digital voice recorders so I can make the recording at a more convenient time.
 

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Posted by James Kulaprathazhe (Member # 4782) on 06-09-2008, 08:01 AM:
 
Justin:

"....I used to record the message on the computer and then output it to the machine. I would do it in pieces so I only had to actually do the new showtimes and ratings info each week...."

How you do this in computer? Do you have any special software?
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-09-2008, 09:23 AM:
 
I used Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio. I would record the message in a number of little pieces - making a separate file for each. Then I would select-copy-paste each of those and drop them onto a new file in order to create the full message. That way I only had to change several pieces each week. For example

•Intro - this stays the same
•Starting Friday tease - recorded each week
•Showtimes - recorded each week
•Prices - stays the same
•Pass restrictions - recorded each week
•Additional info (no CC, Hollywood Movie Money accepted, sound formates, etc) - stays the same
•Starts Friday movies/times - recored each week
•Ratings info - recorded each week
•Closing - stays the same

This way I never had to record more than about a 90 second bit at one go. After assembling the full message, I would apply Process>Volume to get the volume level right.
 

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Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 06-09-2008, 10:11 AM:
 
One of the theaters I'm associated with is in a neighborhood with a lot of older residents who are loyal movie-goers but who lack computers. Suggesting to them that they visit the theater's website brings blank stares or a lecture on the evoloution of progress.

That theater has adapted a small voicemail system box, made by Panasonic. It's a solid state thingy about the size of a cigar box which is mounted on the wall in a store-room and is set up as an announcement-only device which has a simple menu tree to allow users to select what specific info they are looking for without having to listen to a very lengthy message.

Something like-
"Press 1 for showtimes; Press 2 for ticket prices; Press 3 for parking and public transit info; Press 4 for handicapped access info" -etc

It works for us.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-09-2008, 10:39 AM:
 
When I was a youngin I worked for a dollar theatre in Salem, Ma. I started doing the recording there. We had the machine (I forget the model) but its the real common one with the small beige one with cartridge tapes and a digital counter. It can take like 2 or 3 phone lines and has a green button on it and a counter reset button, if you dont use all the tape and it has to fast foward it it plays this awful electronic song. Anyways we only had real short tapes so I would put on my best over board top 40 radio dj voice and run through it at least three times before I got it to fit. Anyways the owner of the theatre heard it and was so impressed he demanded that I work every thursday so I could do the recording and was even thinking of having me record the messages for the other 5 theatres he owned. There was no good way to get the tapes out to the other locations though so that got scrapped.
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-09-2008, 12:07 PM:
 
Sean, you're talking about a Takacom (or Takachiho) system. They have new ones that are digital and give you like 5 minutes. What's really nice about the digital systems is each caller starts at the beginning of the message rather than jumping in at the middle and then repeating.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-09-2008, 04:02 PM:
 
This is one of my pet peeves. The kid making the recording talks just like he or she does when they answer the phone: very unenthusiastic and lip-lazy. They absolutely cannot enunciate. Further, they sound like they want to get it over with quick and go home, which makes it worse.

Consequently, the recordings are useless. A typical one here sounds like:

(very fast) Thank you for calling the zubba-zubba zub. Our bleet bak bau zubba zoo, if thank kornic zuba-zub. Feature andid blat zornit blazza zab...

I always hang up at that point because I'm not even gonna get the office phone number through all of that drivel.
 

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Posted by James Kulaprathazhe (Member # 4782) on 06-09-2008, 07:31 PM:
 
Frank:

Can you post this information. It is very intersting.

"....If anyone is interested, when I get back to the office I'll see if I can find the website avatar program link. I believe it allows more text entry than the other two above. And the female voice is very natural sounding in it. Thing is, because it is not just a text-to-speech program but has that animation thing going on, which I am sure is very sophisticated getting it to lip-sync with the voice, it probably costs a bundle.'...'"

Thanks
 

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Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 06-09-2008, 10:52 PM:
 
Sean...
I just called that theatre recording.. LOL.. That HAS to be an indie.. You'd NEVER get away with that in a corp. chain!

Aight...?
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-10-2008, 03:22 PM:
 
oh yeah... Tim Bob owns the place. You know if you just wanna talk give him a call at home! He used to list his home # not sure if he still does... Allright now that thats out of the way time for a joke... Hes a hoot! I cant take credit for it though I found the number in another thread on here years ago and saved the number in my cell phone!
 

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Posted by Chris Mosel (Member # 1451) on 06-10-2008, 05:25 PM:
 
I used to do jokes and stuff on our recording. Our local radio morning show started calling it up and playing it on the air, which ended up getting me a movie review gig every Thursday morning. I quit several years ago but it was fun for a while.
My favorite was "for information not contained on this recording please call 555-1212" which was the local time and temperature.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 06-11-2008, 11:26 PM:
 

quote: James Kulaprathazhe

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Can you post this information. It is very intersting.

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quote: Sean McKinnon

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For an example of a recording done right call this number (336) 226-1488 It's the Graham Theatre in Graham, North Carolina.

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Uh? A Good example maybe of a recording done wrong!
Yikes, rambling & hesitating would put off most folks.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-16-2008, 10:27 AM:
 

quote: Brad Allen

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Uh?

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I was trying to be facetious (sp?)

I also think that this theatre is in a very small town where everyone knows each other, I would doubt they get too many out of towners or tourists. I am sure Tim Bob is a local celebrity because of his recording. I imagine he is the "Howard Stern" of Graham North Carolina!
 

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Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 06-18-2008, 08:34 AM:
 
Some of the large chains have automated announcements, rather than use a text to speech system, their system has prerecorded versions of each word.

The problem with this is that as new films come out the name of the film is recorded by whoever is in the office at the time, usually with a completely different accent (and often the other gender). The contrast between the professionally recorded voice prompts and film titles is very noticeable.
 

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Posted by Thomas Pitt (Member # 4322) on 06-18-2008, 03:52 PM:
 
If it were a separate recording of each word, you'd be able to make it say the names of the movies by stringing together dictionary words. But the movie titles would still sound disjointed, as if you put a full stop between each word e.g. "The. Chronicles. Of. Narnia. Prince. Caspian." And what if a movie title had a word that was not in the dictionary and not pre-recorded?

What you're probably thinking of is a system that has all the common phrases pre-recorded by a professional announcer, and the theater staff just record the movie names using a microphone as they come out. I've heard those sort of things before - it can be a bit of a shock as suddenly a completely different voice gives the movie title! Often you hear background noise as well, and the member of staff is often saying the title in a rush, so it's hard to understand
 

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Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 06-23-2008, 02:13 PM:
 
Out of college, I was a design engineer at a voice announcements hardware company that made the Changed Number Announcements equipment used by telephone companies and Time & Temp equipment that many banks had years ago.

It's amazing how much work went into building up the announcements from individual phrases and words so that the end result was natural. Compounded by the fact that memory chips weren't exactly cheap, we didn't have much to work with for wiggle room. Many hours would go into splicing dialogue together for a new client. Rising and falling inflections, as well as accents, have an incredible impact on the end result and listener satisfaction.

Whenever I see topics like this, I always get an itch to get back in touch with them to find out if there would be a way to develop a decent system that would work well for theaters that would produce good results without costing more than theaters would be willing to pay. Maybe someday...
 

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Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 06-24-2008, 05:29 PM:
 
My local main railway station used to have an automated system using pre-recorded words, which worked well. Unfortunately when new stations were opened the system just ignored the entire announcement, and it had to be made manually.

They then changed to, what I think is, a text to speech system. I think the system is trained / tweaked so that it can pronounce all the stations correctly, but still allowing flexibility.

A programmable text to speech system may be the best solution to the problem.
 

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Posted by James Kulaprathazhe (Member # 4782) on 06-27-2008, 11:27 PM:
 
Is any one know how to operate this 6 line answering machine?
Answering machine's front panel information shows AEC(Upper left side) and The Messenger TM (Upper right side.) Back of the machine Manufactures address is..
AUTOMATION ELECTRONICS CORP.
11501 DUBLIN BLVD
DUBLIN, CA.
MODEL No 612 serial No. 02910 Made in U.S.A
I send a letter to above address for a manual and letter came back with NO INFO about this address. Then I look in internet result was negative.

Now I have:- the back of the machine have one cable with mic. One cable for power. Another cable go to the back of the computer. This cable have ring finger thick. But I can't find a slot for this back of my computer. This pin look like go to back of the printer.Is it crazy.

This came from AMC theater closed. The person who gave it me said it was working last day of closing. He don't know how it works or programing. He can't find manual. I imagine all AMC have this machine. Any one can help me to get manul or directions. I will be appreciated.
 

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Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 06-30-2008, 02:08 PM:
 
Funny you should mention an AEC unit...

I didn't design that unit, but AEC was purchased by ETC, Inc., which is the company I worked for.

Try this page for information:

http://www.etcia.com/announcers.html

It's been too many years, so I don't remember many details about the Messenger line. Hopefully, someone there can get you a manual so you can begin to use the machine again. From what I recall, they were nice units.
 

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