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I, too, hope that HLsyn eventually will be a viable option and we
could use the old method or HLsyn if we wanted, maybe for reading
long texts and so on. It's a great idea and theory but just isn't
mature enough at this point.<br>
<br>
Alex<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 8/3/2011 1:13 PM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAMECcJ37Syxz9MRcr8T0Tz29xq6VNMq1Tr5x3O+CTFEYzA22bQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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There's always two sides to a coin, if DECtalk hadn't been
purchased it would have died. And since there was no money from
anyone to work on handicapped applications, we had to do what our
customers want it or go home. I recognize that the HLsyn work did
not yield the hoped-for results and perhaps someday it can with
what we learned in our failures. But it was a decision based on
the best knowledge we had at the time and in fact also with Dennis
Klatt's work. The problems that occurred with the HL sin version
aren't of any interest to me because the version put out was in
early one and it's not the right time to pursue trying to perfect
HLsyn. S<br>
<div>On all I can do is my best. </div>
<div> As to the person that mentioned the idea of putting
meaning into the text. DECtalk actually has the ability to do
some marketing and adjustment to train achieve that by hand.
Automating the system to do that is deal beyond our knowledge
and capability. Understanding what is being conveyed is
extremely extremely difficult for a computer. A simple
example;"You did that." Depending on which word you emphasize
most there are three different ways of saying this very simple
sentence with dramatically different meanings. </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Alex H. <span><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:linuxx64.bashsh@gmail.com">linuxx64.bashsh@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote>
<div>Well, to us,, we never really heard later versions of DT,
only the classics from the 90's, so forgive us if we compare
the new attempts to prior versions - it's not like we have a
huge library of source code to just browse at will and endless
samples of every version.... so... yeah.<br>
<br>
Wanna know what's been wrong with the samples and attempts
posted to this list a few months ago for the sapi dectalk?
I'll tell you.<br>
<br>
The voices were clipping and squawking, and all the voices
sounded like they had a speech problem. Perfect Paul wasn't
perfect as most of us have heard before. The voices themselves
sound not like DECTalk at all, they also drop out in volume,
just like a human cuz it's using HLsyn to make it sound more
natural. <br>
I've heard DT 4.2cd, 4.3, 4.4, 4.61, 4.62 and 4.64. But since
you've pointed out before that version numbers don't matter to
speak, is this even important anyway or are we just listening
to the same code with minor tweaks to get the various versions
we know?<br>
<br>
Disable HLsyn in the new product, and it'll suck less. I like
forment based synths, not ones that try and sound human,
because I and others are used to classic forment non-HLsyn
versions of DECTalk. True that HLsyn is still formant but it's
trying to sound real and have human articulation, and knowing
that I can understand why this version sounds different. It's
just not what we're used to, that's all. Some Joe Blow off the
street who has never heard synthesized speech can't understand
Eloquence from DECTalk from Espeak anyways, so this point of
understanding speech is a moot one. They'd be better off
using Cepstral or some human-sampled synths and wasting their
hard drive space. This is being targeted at a relatively small
group of people who have used DECTalk before and like it, so i
think we're safe there. I'd consider giving HLsyn another shot
if it was completed. But as always, corporate America screws
everyone over in the end, and that was the case with Dectalk.
So much so, that Fonix wanted to make FonixTalk and specificly
try and make it sound human. The result sucks.<br>
<br>
<br>
Alex<br>
On 8/3/2011 11:17 AM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div> First of all let me make you aware that I use
DragonDictate, as I can't see very well and proofreading
is quite painful so you'll have to forgive and interpret
from mistakes the DragonDictate may make. It</div>
<div> I was taught about form and speech synthesis by
Dennis Klatt, and by reading but before my involvement
with him I knew next to nothing. One of the questions in
the early days was could you achieve higher
intelligibility by super articulation and do better than
natural speech. What testing revealed was really two
things. At normal speaking rates the answer always seem to
be that the closer you matched to real speech the better
the intelligibility at higher speaking rates above that
which humans could normally achieve things were little
different and I'm not going to go into the specifics of
what we did to make things better at high speed other than
to say they were based on knowledge of speech perception.</div>
<div> The second thing we learned is that listening to a
synthesizer has a very fast but steep learning curve.
Somewhat analogous to learning to understand a person with
a strong dialect or speech impediment. One of the problems
we encountered is that people often preferred the version
they were used to over any succeeding version. But actual
tests did not support the preference.</div>
<div> One example is the way tilt was done inside
DECtalk. The original mechanism was a crude approximation
of spectral tilt. Dennis before he died developed a much
more accurate (meaning matching human production) tilt
filter that was not able to be incorporated to a later
date. As a point of interest Dennis was so dedicated that
he last modified the DECtalk code 3 days before he passed
away. So the spectral tilt was changed and this changed
what you might consider the tone control on an old radio
or record player. That is just one of many reasons why
DECtalk change slightly over the years.</div>
<div> The 5.0 DECtalk Incorporated the work of Prof.
Ken Stevens who was Dennis is blessed MIT and close
friend. The 5.0 code unfortunately did not yield the
expected results, but we did learn a lot from the attempt.
This</div>
<div> there are even some changes to DECtalk that
would change the way it sounds from any particular
version, such as Intonation that I am unwilling to revert
because I know for a fact that they caused loss of
information. So my goal is very simple I am working to
create a very functional intelligible DECtalk to put back
out, I am unwilling to try and make it sound exactly like
any given person wants to. I have been through this before
and the year is very sensitive and if you directly
comparing two versions side-by-side you not testing
anything but whether did the same and that is an exercise
in futility. T </div>
<div> </div>
Any specific issues I can address. Secondly as a word of
warning to listeners providing feedback. The other thing
we've learned is that listeners are excellent at deciding
that something is not right, but are absolutely terrible at
exactly pinpointing the problem. The reason for this is
quite simple people judge the output as speech which it only
kinda is, by this I mean that a synthesizer can make
mistakes that humans cannot possibly do and as a consequence
can't possibly recognize. An example of this is that after
so many years of working with it I have learned to hear a
foreman that's moving too rapidly, but most people cannot
hear it. This is because to make life easy we try to lead
nor stuff that's not important in our language, such as the
nasal lifestyles in French or the retro flex ours in
American English which is Sheehan have a heckuva time
hearing.
<div>
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<br>
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