Re: New Java-based software speech synthesizer available

["T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

You're confusing two tangled issues when you correctly state
your preference for an open source implementation, and 
the fact that the Viavoice RPMs have not been updated in a
while.

On the other hand, so long as the free-loaders of the world
insist on not paying for anything --and that by the way *was
not* what the Free Software movement is about--
you'll continue to see  the present status quo.
Festival and Festival Lite exist because of years of speech
research by Alan Black and his team at Edinburgh and CMU.

>>>>> "tcross" == tcross  <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    tcross> This is very interesting. As it is an open
    tcross> source software synth, it may be a good
    tcross> replacement for ViaVoice. I like ViaVoice very
    tcross> much, but because we have to rely on a binary
    tcross> only distribution and as it seems new versions
    tcross> are not being released, I fear it may get
    tcross> difficult to support over time. For example,
    tcross> when I wanted to get viavoice running on a
    tcross> debian system recently, I had to install extra
    tcross> C++ libraries which were not part of the
    tcross> standard install because the ones originally
    tcross> installed were a later version and Via Voice
    tcross> needed the earlier version.

    tcross> Of course, the problem with the Java based TTS
    tcross> under linux is identifying the best JVM to
    tcross> use. Its been a while since I have done any
    tcross> java, but the last time I looked, you had JVMs
    tcross> from Java, Blackdown and IBM as well as some
    tcross> open source interpreters etc. This may make
    tcross> things a bit confusing for the novice
    tcross> user. However, it would be great if I could use
    tcross> emacspeak on my windows machine at work.

    tcross> It looks like I may have found an interesting
    tcross> project to tackle when I take my holidays in
    tcross> March!

    tcross> Tim Jason White writes:
    >> The following announcement appeared on the
    >> java-access mailing list. I am forwarding it to the
    >> Emacspeak list because, on the FreeTTS web site at
    >> Sourceforge, the authors mention an Emacspeak demo
    >> (there appears to be an Emacspeak speech server
    >> available). I haven't downloaded any of the software
    >> yet, so these remarks are based purely on the web
    >> page.
    >> 
    >> Forwarded message
    >> 
    >> From: Willie Walker <william.walker@xxxxxxxxxxx> To:
    >> JAVA-ACCESS@xxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Sun Microsystems
    >> Laboratories releases an open source speech
    >> synthesizer Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 17:25:17 -0500
    >> 
    >> Greetings!
    >> 
    >> It is my pleasure to announce that the Sun
    >> Microsystems Laboratories Speech Group has made its
    >> FreeTTS (http://freetts.sourceforge.net/) speech
    >> synthesis engine available via open source through a
    >> BSD-style license.  The engine is written entirely in
    >> the Java(tm) programming language and provides
    >> partial support for the synthesis portion of the Java
    >> Speech API 1.0 specification.
    >> 
    >> You can read more about this project in an article on
    >> http://java.sun.com:
    >> 
    >> http://java.sun.com/features/2001/12/flite.html
    >> 
    >> An excerpt from the article is as follows:
    >> 
    >> "Researchers from Sun Microsystems Laboratories in
    >> Burlington, Massachusetts have created an open source
    >> speech synthesis engine written entirely in the
    >> Java(tm) programming language. This high-performance
    >> software converts text to speech. You type it; your
    >> workstation speaks it. And the whole world benefits.
    >> 
    >> Willie Walker, Paul Lamere, and Philip Kwok combined
    >> the Festival Speech Synthesis System, with its robust
    >> architecture, and the Flite engine, with its succinct
    >> algorithms, to create FreeTTS, a synthesizer that
    >> delivers both power and flexibility.
    >> 
    >> The team ported Flite, programmed in C, and Festival,
    >> written in C++ and Scheme, to the Java programming
    >> language. FreeTTS generated intelligible speech four
    >> weeks after researchers wrote the first line of
    >> code. But even with such a short development time,
    >> the team did not compromise results. FreeTTS
    >> outperforms both original applications, executing
    >> nearly four times faster than Flite in some
    >> environments."
    >> 
    >> For the Sun Labs Speech Group,
    >> 
    >> Willie Walker, Manager and Principal Investigator
    >> 
    >> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    tcross> -- Tim Cross mailto: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
    tcross> phone: +61 2 6772 5973 mobile: 0412 969193
    tcross> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

      
Email:  raman@xxxxxxxxxxx
WWW: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/             
PGP:    http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/raman.asc 

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