coscfi@lut.ac.uk (Simon Inwood) (03/08/91)
Organization : Loughborough University, UK.
Keywords:
Dear TTS Guru,
Currently I am looking for a good quality TTS (Text-To-Speech) product
to update the speech output capabilities of our Sun Sparc stations. I am a
member of the PROMISE project team (Multi-Media operator interfaces for process
control systems) at Loughborough University. We require a good quality system that
can generate spoken statements, commands, questions and narratation. I would
prefer a stand-alone product but I am also considering using a PC,PS/2 or Mac as
a dedicated speech server (connected to the Sun via a serial line).
I have been looking at DECTalk by DEC, Apollo by Dolphin Systems,
BeST Speech by Berkeley Speech Technologies, E. Lewis's software based on
the JRSU system (I think?) and Infovox when I find Voice Systems International.
Have I got the best of the bunch?
Do you have any information on DECTalk. It is an obselete product and as a
result I am having difficulties getting information, prices and availability of
it.
What is your opinion of these products? Are there any other products or
research projects that I should be aware of?
Thank you for your time and effort.
Sincerely,
Simon Inwood
Simon C.F. Inwood, Research Assistant, PROMISE research group
Computer Studies Department, Loughborough University of Technology
Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU, UK
S.C.F.Inwood@UK.AC.LUT, Tel. 0509 263171 EXT 4617, Fax. 0509 610815
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Simon C. F. Inwood, Research Assistant, PROMISE research group
Computer Studies Department, Loughborough University of Technology
Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU, UK
S.C.F.Inwood@UK.AC.LUT, Tel. 0509 263171 EXT 4617, Fax. 0509 610815don@zl2tnm.gp.co.nz (Don Stokes) (03/10/91)
coscfi@lut.ac.uk (Simon Inwood) writes: > Do you have any information on DECTalk. It is an obselete product and > result I am having difficulties getting information, prices and availability > it. I don't think it's obsolete, although it's been around for a while. "Mature" perhaps? Seriously, DEC's "replacement" is DECvoice, but this is a completely different class of box, combining both synthesised and digitised voice. The price matches the capablities -- you're talking about a rackload of gear here. I'm pretty sure they will still sell you a DTC03, or even maybe a DTC01. > What is your opinion of these products? Are there any other products o > research projects that I should be aware of? My experience is only with the DTC01, ie the single line tabletop model. This was four or five years ago, so I don't know what the improvements in the DTC03 are (anyone?). My observations were: - You had to put up with a Yank accent, although the worst excesses could be coded around. Of course Yank pronunciation was easily dealt with by either spelling phonetically or embedding phonetic expressions in the text. - The thing had trouble with proper nouns, although it got pure English words right pretty well most of the time. - The pronunciation dictionary could be extended if the above points were a problem. - Phonetic text representation was *very* flexible -- we had our DTC01 singing "Happy Birthday", slightly nasally, but it was very convincing. Tell me if you want the text to do it ... I still have it around. I have heard *much* worse.... - The machine coped well with telephone calls, with pretty much no serious degradation of quality. - There was no way to detect the telephone line being hung up -- you had to handle people hanging up on you with timeouts. - There was the odd bug in the setup, where you could change a parameter, have the thing shriek at you, change it back and find that the shriek persisted -- powering got things back under control. Don Stokes, ZL2TNM / / don@zl2tnm.gp.co.nz (home) Systems Programmer /GP/ GP PRINT LIMITED Wellington, don@gp.co.nz (work) __________________/ / ---------------- New_Zealand__________________________