900 characters is the maximum technical limit.

If you need longer text to be spoken then you can use our API to play back several strings in sequence (the API automatically queues playback).

Here's a technical example -

http://www.oddcast.com/support/tts_limit1.html

Hope this helps.

Gil

There are speech recognition solutions out there that can be used in conjunction with SitePal. But this capability is not built-in. Google is one possible provider.

Using the SitePal API function 'sayAIResponse' it is possible to link the output from voice recognition with the input to the SitePal AI bot.

So the bottom line is - Yes, this is possible to do but requires work to integrate a 3rd party solution.

I should perhaps add that there is an emerging standard in HTML5 - which makes speech recognition as easy as pie -

see - http://shapeshed.com/html5-speech-recognition-api/

and - http://stephenwalther.com/archive/2015/01/05/using-html5-speech-recognition-and-text-to-speech

problem is it is not widely supported

see - http://caniuse.com/#feat=speech-recognition

Hi Eyeconsult3 -

The ability you are looking for is referred to as a custom TTS voice. Creating a TTS voice to sound just like a specific person's voice.

There are no good solutions for doing so at a reasonable price - which is why we have not included this feature so far in our product platform.

I'm sorry I could not be more helpful.

Regards

Gil

The SitePal Team

To play the SitePal Scene automatically (so it will speak as soon as it is loaded) please open your Scene's "Options" (it's the 'gear wheel' option) and turn ON the 'play on load' option.

Note that there are several options available - you can limit the automatic playback to occur only once per session, once a day, etc.

These options are useful to prevent the SitePal character from seeming repetitive to repeat visitors.

Another - related - option that you may not be aware of, is the ability to assign multiple audios to the Scene.

When doing so, your SitePal will select one of the audios at random each time it speaks.

Please consider what works best for you.

Regards,

Gil

Hi Kashif -

Can you post a link to your Scene? I'd like to see which type of character you are using.

So for Classic characters the play button is part of the "player" - and you may select "none" as your player option. If you do that no play button will be available.

With the Full Body characters - the play button only appears "on rollover" (when the user's cursor overlays the character). On mobile devices the play button only appears when the character is touched. This behavior cannot be changed.

Hope this helps,

GIl

Hi Key -

Did you try the full body character?

or only the classic characters?

if not - please try & let me know.

We will look into it next week & advise.

Regards

Gil

Hi Juanita -

We haven't tried!

But excited to find out - if you try it please let me know if you run into problems.

The issue of "embed compatibility" if it can be called that - is interesting -

In Voki 2.0 we moved away from Flash technology (which is not supported on mobile devices and some modern browsers) - to use HTML5 technology - which is supported everywhere.

But this change requires the embed code to use javascript programming. Some sites don't like that.

That's why we kept on the old (deprecated) Flash embed code - in case you need it.

Bottom line - try it and see, and let us know!

Regards,

Gil

Hi Vladimir -

We identified a problem with the built-in AI players - they do not support Cyrilic - but the API does. That's good, because the Players are being deprecated (as we move to HTML5 playback soon) - but the API will be supported moving forward.

So I encourage you to use the API solution. The programming required is relatively minimal - and we have an example in the support pages - http://www.oddcast.com/support/sayAI.html

This example is in English - I'll see if we can put up an example that works in Russian.

Hope this helps

Gil

Hi Shaun -

SitePal characters can deliver most features/capabilities without any programming. And to allow extended capabilities we have made available the API. The functionality that you are looking for falls under that category - it is only supported by using the API (hence via programming).

Many of our customers know how to handle basic programming in HTML & Javascript - and that should be enough in this case.

For those that do not feel comfortable dabbling in code - they often times get a consultant to do so.

I hope that explains the context of my response and why it had to be technical. I am sorry if you found it confusing.

Best regards,

Gil