[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III Themes and Apps] joel2009:
TWEAKS

There aren't too many additional tweaks you can do with MSVC. If you have information on additional tweaks, please advise:

Change Speech Speed - If your friendly MSVC assistanct Michelle is talking too slow or too fast for you, you can change her speed.

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Speech\Voices

Change the value of "DefaultTTSRate" from between 1 (slowest) and 10 (fastest). Default if 4. I prefer 0 as it is not that slow and makes her a little clearer to understand.

Change MSVC to another voice -

Can't be done!

At least not any way that has been discovered. The various localized versions (US vs. UK, etc.) use different voices, but part of this configuration appears to be hard-coded into the application.

Change the sounds MSVC uses -

Can't be done!

The following registry keys exist dealing with sounds for MSVC:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Voice Command\Speech\Earcons]
"SRDirectedEarcon"="SRDirected.wav"
"TimeoutEarcon"="SRAsleep.wav"
"PTTEarcon"="SRAwake.wav"

If you remove or change these values the sounds go away, so they are definitely linked to these keys. But the issue is these files don't exist! So the sounds are apparently built into the program code. I have played around with changing these values to redirect to other sounds with no success.

Change Bluetooth PTT Delay - When you press the button on your BT headset to initiate MSVC two things happen: Your audio gateway opens to pass your voice to the phone AND MSVC initiates on the phone to accept your command. Some BT headsets take a while to establish their audio gateway. Because of this MSVC may open before the audio gateway is established. This can cause your voice to get cut off or decrease your recognition. To increase or decrease the delay from when you push your BT headset to when MSVC "picks up" do the following:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Voice Command\Speech

Add/Change a DWORD value "BluetoothPTTDelay"

Add a value in milliseconds (ms) - I believe the default is about 400ms. I'm not sure how high a value it will accept, but I think it maxes out at somewhere between 2-4000 (2-4 seconds). A value of "2000" should be good if you need a longer delay. Alternatively, you can try setting this to 0 if your BT gateway establishes quickly...this may make MSVC pick up quicker.

SOFT RESET!

Change Recognizer Timeout - When the MSVC Microphone appears at the top of your screen, you have 4 seconds to start talking before it closes. If you want to increase or decrease this interval do the following:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Voice Command\Speech

Add/Change a DWORD value "SRTimeout"

Add a value in milliseconds (ms) - The default is "4000" (4 seconds). I'm not sure how high a value it will accept, but I have tested it between 0 and 8000. 8000 is an 8 second timeout and 0 causes it to not listen to a word you say!

SOFT RESET!

Change Rejection and Ignore Threshholds - When you speak a voice command, MSVC attempts to understand what you say. It assigns your speech a confidence level based on its interpretation on a scale from 1 to 100. It compares the confidence level to the IgnoreThreshold (default 10). If the confidence level is less than the IgnoreThreshold it discards the command. This would happen if you said something that MSVC doesn't understand at all like "cook me breakfast." It would assign a very low confidence level based on it's matching techniques. It would then most likely discard this and do nothing further. If what you say is somewhat recognizable to MSVC, meaning it is above the IgnoreThreshold it will attempt to interpret it. It will compare the confidence level to the RejectionThreshold (default 36). If the confidence level is less than the RejectionThreshold, but GREATER than the IgnoreThreshold that means that it won't reject you, but it isn't 100% sure. In this case you will be asked to "Try again" or "Please Repeat." Otherwise, if your confidence level is above the RejectionThreshold that means MSVS thinks it understood you and will do its best to interpret your command to one in its set. To change the values of these thresholds to better tune MSVC to your vocal tones, you can modify the following:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Voice Command\Speech

Change DWORD value "IgnoreThreshold" or "RejectionThreshold"

Soft-reset

Adjusting Volume of Announcements - There are two values that seem to influence the volume of announcements. They are stored within the following key:

HKCU\Control Panel\Sound Categories\Voice Command1

The values are:

AttenutationCategory

InitVol

There are apparently different default setting based on your device. In general the values are generally around 1-4 for AttenuationCategory and 1-5 for InitVol. Some research shows that setting InitVol to 40 and AttenuationCategory to 1 provide the best results. In my testing I have found the InitVol to do nothing. The AttenuationCategory definitely does something, it seems the lower the number the lower the voice. When set it to 0 the announcements were very faint. Setting it higher made them higher, although I can't say that anything over 4 or 5 got any louder.

In my findings I would say set both of these to 5 (I have read some other posts that lead me to believe setting InitVol over 5 is pointless, in addition, the posts that recommend setting it to 40 don't specify if that is decimal or hex).

Adjusting Incoming announcements while on a call - Incoming announcements will come in if they are enabled...even when you are on a call. The only time they will not is if your time is marked as "busy" in your calendar. See my MSVC tools for ways around this and other announcement issues.

TIPS

Windows Media Player Voice Commands:

Apparently MSVC doesn't properly read ID3v2 tags. If you want it to understand you properly you should use ID3v1. Find out more info here. (courtesy nonsequitir).

Problems using "Dial":

Some people have issues with the "Dial" command in MSVC. This often occurs when trying to dial numbers that are different than the standard dialing system for the country that the version of MSVC supports. The workaround for this would be to create a contact and use the "Call" command instead.

Use the nickname field to improve recognition accuracy:

From Microsoft: "You can name contacts with nicknames such as Home, Mom, or Dentist. After doing this, you can call by simply saying Call Home, etc. If you have a contact that you consistently cannot access, try adding a nick name that looks the way that you might pronounce it."

To add a nickname to a user, edit the contact. Click the arrow to the right of the contact's name to bring down an advanced dialog box that allows you to specify a nickname.

Jawbone 2 Users:

In order to initiate MSVC from this headset, you do not press the talk button. Instead you hold the Noise Assassin button for 2 seconds. (courtesy Mario23)