Responsiveness and ViaVoice Outloud

["Bryan Smart" <bsmart@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone.

I've been working on a speech server for Emacspeak to interface it with the
version of ViaVoice Outloud for I386 Linux.  I have had a fair amount of
progress, but am disappointed with the responsiveness of the ViaVoice
Outloud program.  This lack of performance is especially lacking in the
areas of the time it takes ViaVoice Outloud to respond to a stop speech
request, as well as the length of the initial delay required to synthesize
single letters (making arrowing in files a difficult process).  It is an
improvement over Festival and Mbrola, but the Linux version of ViaVoice
Outloud does not match up to performance of similar versions of the
software for Windows.

As I recall, someone on this list commented that Eloquence, the incarnation
of ViaVoice Outloud distributed by Henter-Joyce, had been extensively
modified in order to produce superior responsiveness.  This may or may not
be so, but the version that was included with my copy of JFW certainly
outperforms the Linux port of ViaVoice Outloud.  Can anyone speculate as to
the cause of the differences in performance?

I doubted the truth of the assertion that H-J had "modified" ViaVoice
Outloud, as I assumed that IBM would license a product to Henter-Joyce, but
would not give them the source and allow them to distribute a hacked
version of the product.

Also, there is the matter that the Linux version of ViaVoice Outloud is a
beta version, but, considering that most of the basic TTS engine would have
survived the port in a mostly unchanged state, I was hesitant to blame the
lack of speed on the program's beta status.

Basically, I'm ready to listen to any technical tips, rambling, rumors, or
any other information that people are willing to give about ViaVoice
Outloud, any "hacks" by the screen reader vendors, and the Linux port.

Best,
Bryan

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