- To: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Subject: Re: just a newbi problem, want to use festival, not flite with emacspeak
- From: "T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 05:36:26 -0700
- Delivered-To: emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx
- In-Reply-To: <17684.53928.557305.128640@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- List-Help: <mailto:emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx?subject=help>
- List-Post: <mailto:emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- List-Subscribe: <mailto:emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx?subject=subscribe>
- List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe>
- Old-Return-Path: <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Reply-To: raman@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Resent-Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 08:39:58 -0400 (EDT)
- Resent-From: emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Resent-Message-ID: <vMBkDD.A.LIG.esSFFB@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Resent-Sender: emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx
so why do yu ned the Viavoice sdk - the waa the emacspeak server
is implemented, all you need is the runtime.
>>>>> "tcross" == tcross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
tcross> Just a few points which may be of interest in this
tcross> thread.
tcross>
tcross> Festival is a very powerful and configurable TTS. It
tcross> can support quite a few different voices and has a
tcross> lot of parameters which can be tweaked to improve
tcross> synthesis. The "out of the box" configuration is a
tcross> general default that is likely to meet most users
tcross> requirements. However, I found (quite some time ago)
tcross> when playing with festival, I could get better
tcross> performance tweaking some of the settings associated
tcross> with festival and the voice tools. Unfortunately, it
tcross> was a while ago and I dont actually remember what all
tcross> the tweaks were.
tcross>
tcross> Festival supports voices from other sources and in
tcross> many distributions, you will get different quality
tcross> voices - for example, in Debian, there are both 8k
tcross> and 16k voices for US/UK english. The 8k voices don't
tcross> have the same quality, but will probably give better
tcross> performance on slower machines with less memory.
tcross>
tcross> Although I've never got around to it, mbrola voices
tcross> are supposed to provide very good quality voices with
tcross> festival. Voices from http://www.cepstral.com can
tcross> also be used with festival - they had a perl script
tcross> on their website that would allow you to import a
tcross> cepstral voice into festival. Cepstral voices are
tcross> good quality, but they lose quality significantly at
tcross> higher voice speaking rates. They are commercial
tcross> voices which you have to pay for, but they do have a
tcross> number of different languages available.
tcross>
tcross> IMO by far the best software TTS for emacspeak is
tcross> ViaVoice, which you can purchase from
tcross> http://www.wizzardsoftware.com. However, you have to
tcross> purchase the SDK and it costs over $300US.
tcross>
tcross> Second best for quality of speech is the software
tcross> dectalk. However, this TTS engine does crash
tcross> regularly under emacspeak (it works reliably under
tcross> speech dispatcher, but speech dispatcher is using it
tcross> in its most basic way and does not try to use the
tcross> in-line voice control codes emacspeak uses for voice
tcross> locking etc). The software dectalk is available from
tcross> http://www.fonix.com for about $100US.
tcross>
tcross> I used the softwar dectalk for quite some time and
tcross> managed to live with the regular crashes - all you
tcross> need to do is a C-e C-s when the TTS stops working
tcross> and verything is restarted. Although a bit annoying,
tcross> it provides good voice quality at high speaking
tcross> rates, which I think is important. I now use it as my
tcross> emergency backup TTS if I don't have a hardware
tcross> synthesiser for backup.
tcross>
tcross> HTH
tcross>
tcross> Tim
tcross>
tcross>
tcross>
tcross>
tcross>
tcross>
tcross> Lukas Loehrer writes:
>>
>> Some observations:
>>
>> I just tried speech dispatcher with festival again. I am
>> using fspeech dispatcher via speechd-el this time. I am
>> using the packages from Debian unstable.
>>
>> When using the flite output module of speech dispatcher,
>> responsiveness is the same as with eflite in
>> emacspeak. When using the festival output module in speech
>> dispatcher, some of the problems seen in espeakf go
>> away. Speech stops immediately when it should. However,
>> there is a noticeable pause between the moment a command
>> is issued and the corresponding speech starts. I cannot
>> tell if the pause is silence generated by the tts or if it
>> takes that long for the speech to be synthesized. In the
>> latter case, a faster machine might in fact help.
>>
>> Thus, it seems that if one is looking for good
>> responsiveness, festival used through either espeakf or
>> speech-dispatcher should not be one's first choice. things
>> look differently if priorities lie with support for
>> multiple voices or languages.
>>
>> Best regards, Lukas
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your
>> address on the emacspeak list send mail to
>> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a subject of
>> "unsubscribe" or "help"
>>
tcross>
--
Tim Cross tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
tcross>
tcross> There are two types of people in IT - those who do
tcross> not manage what they understand and those who do not
tcross> understand what they manage.
tcross>
tcross> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
tcross> To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your
tcross> address on the emacspeak list send mail to
tcross> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a subject of
tcross> "unsubscribe" or "help"
--
Best Regards,
--raman
Email: raman@xxxxxxxxxxx
WWW: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
AIM: emacspeak GTalk: tv.raman.tv@xxxxxxxxxxx
PGP: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc
Google: tv+raman
IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/#emacs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your address on the
emacspeak list send mail to "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a
subject of "unsubscribe" or "help"