Hey guys. Can anyone with a package 9 prius tell me if the voice for the navigation system that says things like "right turn" is a woman's voice or a man's voice. Also, does it sound semi-natural or like a complete machine. Please let me know, and if possible maybe record a video or sound so that I can hear! I AM SOOO EXCITED TO GET MY PRIUS I CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER!
It's a pleasant woman's voice that sounds quite natural. I don't have a good means of recording the voice and getting it transfered to computer, sorry. BTW, my boys named her Sophie. --evan
LOL! Thats great. I am going to give a name to mine when i get it as well.. hah. I just hope i can get someone to record the voice. Actually, what I really want is someone to just film a video of the entire car and all of it's high tech features. It would have to be someone with package 9. They could demonstrate smart entry, smart start, the Navigation, bluetooth, etc. IS ANYONE ABLE TO DO THIS FOR THE REST OF THE EXPECTANT PRIUS OWNERS?
It seems to me that the voice activated portion of the nav system is more for the "wow" factor than really useful. The commands as I utter them don't seem to be understood well, if at all. Frankly I don't use it. Now maybe if I could figure out how to be understood perhaps I would feel like this was a useful feature. I think it is very telling that in the 130+ page nav manual there is about one page on voice activation. The SE/SS took one second to get used to, and will be impossible to ever give up. Needing a key now seems so superfluous, and it was not that long ago I was tied to a "keyless remote". After about a month of driving and four thousand miles later, I still cannot get over how neat this car is. The technology, operating in stealth, all the incredibly well engineered aspects. For me this is the most remarkable car I've ever owned, and this is the 19th in a series that began when I was 17 years old with a 1933 Rolls Royce. I hope your car comes in soon, Pete. You will love it!!! Peace
Off all the WOW factors I have to agree the SE/SS is the most useful. I'm not sure I'd be able to be happy in a car without. I regularly drive my wife's Volvo S80 or my company car an Audi A6. I will invariably put the keys into my pocket. Walk to the car and try to open the door. After thinking its broken I'll remember to take the keys out of my pocket and unlock the door. I then put the keys back into my pocket, get in and wonder why it won't start! I then have to dig the keys out of my pocket to drive. And then remember to take the key with me when I leave. I'm now waiting for a way to buy a new lockset for my home and office that works with the SE/SS fob. I don't use the Nav package unless I go on a long drive. The lovely women's voice provides a good reminder well before exiting the turnpike. This is very handy if I'm talking to someone. In my mind's eye the lady the probably spoke the voice commands has to be lovely due to her voice. That being said, when driving through a city with lots of twists and turns I usually turn the voice WAY down to help preserve sanity. With my choice of vehicles to drive I invariably choose the Prius. Its more fun and interesting to drive than the others. My only wishes for improvements are: 1. Front seat goes back 1 more inch. 2. 1 more inch of head room in the back (I'm 6'3") 3. A more comfortable front seat with slightly better lumbar support. 4. Some carrier to create a bluetooth PDA phone. I hope your wait ends soon.
For the most part I agree. I think that if one were to make extensive use of the NAV then the voice activation would be more useful as it's, by far, the easiest way to find POIs, delete them, resume or suspend guidance, etc. But, with time, the cuteness of controlling the temp and stereo fades with the more efficient and accurate buttons so conveniently placed on the steering wheel. It is fun to say "I'm hungry" for friends and have all the restraunt icons show up. I agree that SE/S is my #1 favorite and most useful feature, but the Bluetooth phone is a VERY close second.
I've got about 45 minutes of video that I took when I had someone elses Prius for a weekend - the weekend before mine came last October. Unfortunatey it's not really edited, except for the clips at the site below. I have some shorter clips hosted at Jerry Jorgison's (2004 YG) site. They're in Real Media format. Note - most of this is of her Silver Prius. http://www.j3iss.com/2004.prius.preview/ One of these days perhaps I'll convert the whole unedited thing - I just don't have time. The unedited version does include the NAV lady however. If I get some time, maybe I can put together a 30 second clip. -Rick
The videos are GREAT PLEASE OH PLEASE CONVERT ALLTHE FOOTAGE! I am soo desperate to see more of the prius, such as smart start etc. Convert it into a quicktime file. It might be too big to put on the web, but if you can directly send the whole thing to me I can put it on my website and watch all the footage. NONE of that footage (45 mins worth) is bad. If it is all on the prius, it doesnt need to be edited. Please let me know when you can do this. These small clips just ARENT ENOUGH!
I've got the NAV clip almost ready - it's going to be in RealVideo format though. I've found that it does better overall, and free players are available on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. I'd prefer DivX, but I haven't found a suitable audio codec to match that's also an "open standard" (not mp3) and "cross platform". I don't have a recent QuickTime codec which I can use with Premiere 6. My other choice is Windows Media, which I don't prefer. Unfortunately the uncompressed version is nearly 9GB in DV-AVI format. I don't have the bandwidth or means (DVD burner) to get something like that to you. Compressing it would take nearly a day. Probably not going to happen. -Rick
About 2.5MB and about 1m23s in length. The aduio's a bit tinny (her voice is smooth, not tinny) - don't have a good place to host it though. Real Video 9 encoded, using RA8 audio at 44 or 64kbit. Overall bitrate is 256kbit. -Rick
Funny thing is I shot them on 10/15 when I was one of the first to get a hold of a Prius (not mine). Once I had the video done, half the people who were interested had since gotten access to their own, or a dealer demo, so it became mostly irrelevant. For ametur, it's okay I would have liked to have gotten more, and used a 3 CCD progressive scan capable camera from work, but I have no time! -Rick
well you can host them at my site if you wish...just shoot me an email for details...or let me know where you can make them available and ill add em... -don
I had to try three times Saturday to get "Yes" understood. I guess it was the stress over being told way too late I was supposed to turn right. Perhaps some programmer didn't realize that if someone managed to detour through a parking lot they'd end up too close to a turn point for the computer to announce the upcoming turn. Too busy driving to be map-reading, I went by it. And the level of followable routes is still lacking. I knew of a shortcut to get where I wanted to go, but the auto-reroute tried taking me WAY out of the way, and even when I was within 1,000 yards of the OfficeMax I was going to, per the POI on the map, it never offered a new route. Must be it got peeved after the first alternate route was ignored, or else the road I was on wasn't routable for some reason. I still like the voice directions, but the next trip computer I get *has* to both pick up location data and alert me faster than this one does...
Nav Voice Video has been posted. http://s87059328.onlinehome.us/files/video...System%20web.rm Thanks Danny for the space and enjoy guys! -Rick
Be warned, it's a 2.5MB file! Also, I don't know who the actor is in this movie, but I think I heard he's up for an Oscar for the best Documentary of a Hybrid!
Nice. I want to see more videos! AND LONGER ONES. I would really like to see a video of smart entry and different angles, instead of just having the tripod in the back seat all the time!
I've posted others at that site as well - mostly the same as what's at Jerry's site though - just better speed I don't have too much outside the car. some walkarounds, that's about it. Tripod - It's hard to camera and drive at the same time. My 8 year old isn't adept at doing it just yet, and my wife wasn't willing. Enjoy! -Rick
