Help with voice tags please

[rogerc]

I am having ongoing problems with recording mp3 voice tags for the directory structure of my son's H320. I have most of his artist directories and albums successfully tagged but do not seem able now to tag some new ones. I have tried both recording directly into mp3 using the iRiver and recording into wav.using sound recorder then encoding using Lame, and have been very careful to rename the folders "_dirname.talk" but all without succes. The Mp3 files play back fine but once renamed and put into the H320 I get silence. Interestingly when I page down to other folders previously tagged I get the voice tag fine, when I page down to a folder not tagged I get " folder 6", " folder 7" etc, but when I get to one of the newly tagged folders I just get silence. Previously recorded tags moved into the new folders work (albeit misleadingly!)
Any ideas please - this is quite important to my son.

[bascule]

Have you tried playing the files (renamed to .mp3) directly on the H320 as a song?

This would at least confirm that it is not an encoding problem that only shows up when playing on the device. Sometimes PC-based players can be more tolerant of badly/erroneously coded files than Rockbox may be.

If it works on the player as a .mp3, but not when renamed as a .talk file, then it's definitely a more difficult problem...

[rogerc]

Thanks for the idea. I have tried that and when retagged as an mp3 it does play back thro' the H320, albeit very quietly. I have checked whether it is a volume issue but the recently recorded tags appear to be the same volume on playback as the original ones and even with the volume deafeningly high I can hear no trace of the newly recorded tags when they are given the .talk name

[bascule]

...and have been very careful to rename the folders "_dirname.talk" ...

I hate to be pedantic, and I don't think you've done this, but your statement says you changed the folder name but it should be filename i.e.,

This folder
/The Beatles/Revolver/
should have, along with track1.mp3, track2.mp3 etc., a '_directory.talk' file which is your MP3 voicing "The Beatles, Revolver" and then renamed as a .talk file.

Also, I had another thought while I was writing that, make sure that it's not a Windows obfuscation of the filename. You may well have accidentally created a '_dirname.talk.mp3 ' file that definitely won't work.

One more thing, have you reset your settings and restarted the player at any point, it's always worthwhile trying.

If it's none of the above and unless anyone else can help, I suggest you file a bug report. I've never used the voice functionality, but it seems as if there is nothing wrong with the files themselves.

[rogerc]

Please don't apologise for preciseness - I know its necessary and I also know that I am working at the limits of my technical understanding and that leads to imprecision on my part. If it had been for me and not for my partially sighted son I think I would have given up by now! .
I have set up a structure which has a folder (?directory?) "A-D" containing folders (directories?) of artists eg "Beatles" containing folders (directories?) of albums eg "Revolver" which in turn has the individual track files. With the track files is the MP3 file of "Revolver", with the album folders is the MP3 file of "Beatles"and with the artists folders is the Mp3 FILE  "A-D". All the MP3 files have been renamed "_dirname.talk" and I don't think they have been "obfuscated" as they are showing up as .talk files on the H320 and Windows is recognising them as .talk files and doesn't know how to open them. I have tried resetting but without luck. .talk file put on the H320 earlier in the year are still working fine but it won't "speak" new ones no matter where I put them iin the directory structure. Thanks for your help but it looks like I am into a bug report -

[bascule]

It certainly seems as though you have done everything correctly and I don't think I can do any more without actually getting 'hands-on' with your player.

You could post a working and a non-working .talk file to the forum (you'll have to rename it to a file type that the forum accepts - .txt, .pdf, .jpg, .gif, .png, .doc, .bin, .cfg) and I'll have a play around with them.

I can only think it is something simple but non-obvious and as you've tried so hard it seems a shame to give up now

[rogerc]

Really appreciate your efforts. Hope it isn't down to something really stupid on my part!

Dirname1 doesn't work, but dirname2 does

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[bascule]

I'm not having much joy with either of these files. This is what I've found so far:

_dirname1 is a tagged as a 5-second 127 kb/s VBR mono MP3 file
The file is 'recognised' in WinAmp, but does not play
Goldwave says this file has 'no audio content' and will not open it
On my H120, this file does not appear to play at all.

_dirname2 is tagged as a 2-second 64 kb/s mono MP3 file
The file plays in WinAmp, there is a noise, but no recognisable speech
Goldwave opens and plays the file which is actually 1.1 secs long, with the same audible result as WinAmp.
On my H120, again this plays, but with unrecognisable noise

From this I deduce that your 'new' mp3 files are somehow broken, but I don't know how or why. It may be worth re-downloading Lame.exe or Lame.dll (whichever you are using) and trying to create them again?

I'm also not sure how you are creating the files, I think it's using a microphone to record your actual voice? It may be worth looking into this automatic directory voicing script/application linked from here:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VoiceHowto#Speaking_spelling_directories_an

Unfortunately, I'm going to be unavoidably offline for a few days now, but I'll check back to see how you (or anyone else) has got on with this problem soon.

[bascule]

I've been experimenting a little bit and have recorded a voice clip using the standard recording function of my H120 with the internal microphone. I recorded direct to MP3 128 kb/s at 44.1 kHz and it works perfectly.

Somehow your recording method is creating broken files. I've attached my file for you to try.

Please let me know some more details of your method and I'll carry on trying to help.

EDIT: I've been playing with the automatic application/scripts for generating voice tags and it works brilliantly! It can automatically create both directory and file .talk files using Windows' built-in (with XP and above, anyway) speech synthesis capabilities. Check it out, I think it will answer all your problems.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VoiceHowto#Speaking_spelling_directories_an

Direct link to zip file: http://rockbox.aplcycling.org/voiceBox.zip

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[rogerc]

Have taken your advice and used the automatic application and it does work brilliantly. I was put off this originally as it looked a bit complicated but it wasn't in practice and it will save me a lot of time as I put the rest of his collection on. Many thanks from me and also from Nick