Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I have tried orca with gnome-speech and the gnome-speech espeak driver, and initially it seems to work well. The one question I have (as it is most noticable) is getting espeak to work with alsa and allow other sounds to play at the same time. Note this can be done on my system with speech-dispatcher so the sound card can do it, but I find sometimes speech-dispatcher dies occasionally, and removing as many stages as possible seems to me to be much more preferable (just my oppinion).

Anyway what have I done. Portaudio18 does not support alsa, so I compiled espeak with portaudio19. When using the defaults for compiling portaudio19, espeak seemed not to use alsa (so I think), so I compiled it with only alsa support. Espeak works fine like this, except it still doesn't speak with other alsa sounds in the background, and issues a error (refering to alsa files, I can give this error if it would help anyone). Gnome-speech works with everything like this, but sound while speech is going on is not possible.

So can I solve this? would it help to configure alsa and jack, and use the jack output of portaudio? Or would something else solve the problem?

Any help is welcome.

From
Michael Whapples

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Jonathan Duddington]

In article <BAY103-DAV786181796A5528CB285258E8A0@phx.gbl>,

> Anyway what have I done. Portaudio18 does not support alsa, so I
> compiled espeak with portaudio19.

I think some versions of portaudio19 work better than others.

Try using the latest development snapshot of portaudio19 from:
 http://www.portaudio.com/
and the eSpeak version 1.20 from:
 http://espeak.sourceforge.net/

I'm not very familiar with topics such as portaudio and also, but
Gilles Casse <gcasse@oralux.org>  has been looking at this.

O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[David Harvey]

Hello.

This is a bit off topic regarding Speakup, but ESpeak.

I've downloaded the windows version from
http://espeak.sourceforge.net
installed it but I get an error saying that it needs some directories.

Thanks

David Harvey

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Michael Whapples]

To give a few more details on this, I am using espeak 1.20 and the current 
stable portaudio 19 (I think 061121 as I remember). Gnome-speech is from SVN 
at rev 278.

I will try with the latest portaudio19 snapshot to see if that makes a 
difference.

From
Michael Whapples 

Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[Jonathan Duddington]

In article <000601c75414$35be46d0$9160d3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> I've downloaded the windows version from
> http://espeak.sourceforge.net
> installed it but I get an error saying that it needs some directories.

What error message?
Which directories?

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Tomas Cerha]

Michael Whapples napsal(a):
> Note this can be done on my system with speech-dispatcher so the
> sound card can do it, but I find sometimes speech-dispatcher dies
> occasionally, and removing as many stages as possible seems to me
> to be much more preferable (just my oppinion).

I know it doesn't answer your question, but your feedback might help to
fix the problem with Speech Dispatcher.  Were you using Orca with Speech
Dispatcher backend, or a Speech Dispatcher Gnome Speech driver?

Note that Speech Dispatcher backend allows Orca to communicate directly
with Speech Dispatcher.  See http://live.gnome.org/Orca/SpeechDispatcher

Did you try using Speech Dispatcher with anything else than espeak?

Best regards, Tomas

RE: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[David Harvey]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 900 bytes --]

Hi Jonathan,

The error is:

Espeakedit Error
Failed to load phoneme data,
needs espeak-data/phontab,phondata,phonindex
OK

David Harvey


-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Jonathan Duddington
Sent: Tuesday, 20 February 2007 12:30 AM
To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'
Subject: Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

In article <000601c75414$35be46d0$9160d3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> I've downloaded the windows version from
> http://espeak.sourceforge.net
> installed it but I get an error saying that it needs some directories.

What error message?
Which directories?


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[-- Attachment #2: tst.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 94 bytes --]

Espeakedit Error
Failed to load phoneme data,
needs espeak-data/phontab,phondata,phonindex
OK 

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Michael Whapples]

To further this more, I have now tried updating to the latest portaudio19 
snapshot, this gives interesting results.

When using the espeak binary (not the speak, not tried that, so using the 
shared lib), I now have quite a long delay from pressing the enter key after 
typing the command and the speech. The latency when using gnome-speech 
doesn't seem to be increased much (if at all). When using the espeak 
command, if I have speakup speaking (using speechd-up and speech-dispatcher, 
producing sound using alsa) then espeak can start speaking across the output 
(multiple sound output, possibly success), but if espeak starts speaking 
before speakup is made to speak, then espeak blocks the sound card and 
speakup speech doesn't come through. When using gnome-speech and orca, I 
have never got it like this to produce speech and sound.

So could this be a portaudio problem? Does libespeak produce the sound (via 
portaudio) or does it give the sound data back to whatever is using the lib? 
I suppose I am getting at, is it that the gnome-speech espeak driver needs 
to support alsa for me to get sound and speech working this way, or can I do 
it by getting libespeak to use alsa?

From
Michael Whapples 

Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[Jonathan Duddington]

In article <000001c7541c$ef68aaa0$9160d3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> The error is:

> Espeakedit Error
> Failed to load phoneme data,
> needs espeak-data/phontab,phondata,phonindex

That's from the  espeakedit  program.

You must first install  espeak.  That's the  espeak-1.20-win.zip 
download.  This installs the eSpeak SAPI5 speech engine, and puts the
data files in  C:\Program Files\eSpeak\espeak-data.

eSpeak voices should now appear in the SAPI5 voices list in programs
such as screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, Window-Eyes) and other programs
such as the simple TTSApp which is installed in C:\Program Files\eSpeak
 as part of the espeak installation.  

You only need the  espeakedit  program (that's the 
espeakedit-1.20-win.zip  download) if you want to edit the data (eg.
the pronunciation rules).  It expects data files to already be in
C:\Program Files\eSpeak.

RE: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[David Harvey]

Hello,

Thanks for the Help I now have the voices working.

However there's a few problems:

1.  Years and currency signs aren't spoken correctly.
2.  After exiting JFW and restarting it, the voices pitch sounds high.

Can we preferably take this discuss off list so we can keep to the main
topic?

Thanks
David Harvey


-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Jonathan Duddington
Sent: Tuesday, 20 February 2007 1:13 AM
To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'
Subject: Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

In article <000001c7541c$ef68aaa0$9160d3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> The error is:

> Espeakedit Error
> Failed to load phoneme data,
> needs espeak-data/phontab,phondata,phonindex

That's from the  espeakedit  program.

You must first install  espeak.  That's the  espeak-1.20-win.zip 
download.  This installs the eSpeak SAPI5 speech engine, and puts the
data files in  C:\Program Files\eSpeak\espeak-data.

eSpeak voices should now appear in the SAPI5 voices list in programs
such as screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, Window-Eyes) and other programs
such as the simple TTSApp which is installed in C:\Program Files\eSpeak
 as part of the espeak installation.  

You only need the  espeakedit  program (that's the 
espeakedit-1.20-win.zip  download) if you want to edit the data (eg.
the pronunciation rules).  It expects data files to already be in
C:\Program Files\eSpeak.


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Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[Jonathan Duddington]

In article <000001c7542a$02fdde20$916cd3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> 1.  Years and currency signs aren't spoken correctly.

Again, you give me a hint, but without the information I need.

Is this the English voice?
Which currency signs aren't spoken correctly?
In what way are years wrong?
  
> 2.  After exiting JFW and restarting it, the voices pitch sounds high.

Check the pitch settings in the voice options in JFW.

RE: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[David Harvey]

Hi Jonathan,

Currency signs $, £, etc says dollar 1 instead of one dollar.

Years spoken one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine instead of nineteen
ninety nine.  Years above 2000 are unaffected.

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Jonathan Duddington
Sent: Tuesday, 20 February 2007 3:47 AM
To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'
Subject: Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

In article <000001c7542a$02fdde20$916cd3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> 1.  Years and currency signs aren't spoken correctly.

Again, you give me a hint, but without the information I need.

Is this the English voice?
Which currency signs aren't spoken correctly?
In what way are years wrong?
  
> 2.  After exiting JFW and restarting it, the voices pitch sounds high.

Check the pitch settings in the voice options in JFW.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[Jonathan Duddington]

In article <000001c75437$667449a0$de66d3cb@yourtpj8jvyu9p>,
   David Harvey <david@d-w-harvey.com> wrote:

> 1.  Years and currency signs aren't spoken correctly.
> Currency signs $, £, etc says dollar 1 instead of one dollar.

That depends what you think is "correct".
"Dollar 1" is what's written in the text, so that's what it speaks.

I don't think it's worth changing this.  It's not ambiguous, and I even
think it's clearer to understand, because you hear the "dollar" first,
so you are then expecting to hear the dollar amount.  If it speaks "One
dollar", then you don't know that it's money until after you hear the
whole amount.

> Years spoken one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine instead of
> nineteen ninety nine.  Years above 2000 are unaffected.

How does it know it's a year, rather than a number?

Actually eSpeak says "nineteen hundred 'n ninety nine" for 1999.

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Michael Whapples]

I am using speech-dispatcher through gnome-speech with orca when I get the 
problems with speech-dispatcher (I have occasionally had it when using 
speechd-up, although not as much as those reporting problems with AMD64, and 
normally when using speakup there is orca in the background of the gnome 
session (I sometimes have orca but not speechd-up and think I have had the 
problem)).

Some time ago, I did try the speech-dispatcher back-end for orca, but didn't 
continue to use it as I remember that there were some issues with it knowing 
when the speech had finished and sometimes missing parts of speech. Also 
whenever I do an update I would need to re-apply the back-end, or so went my 
experience.

From
Michael Whapples
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tomas Cerha" <cerha@brailcom.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 11:37 AM
Subject: Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa


> Michael Whapples napsal(a):
>> Note this can be done on my system with speech-dispatcher so the
>> sound card can do it, but I find sometimes speech-dispatcher dies
>> occasionally, and removing as many stages as possible seems to me
>> to be much more preferable (just my oppinion).
>
> I know it doesn't answer your question, but your feedback might help to
> fix the problem with Speech Dispatcher.  Were you using Orca with Speech
> Dispatcher backend, or a Speech Dispatcher Gnome Speech driver?
>
> Note that Speech Dispatcher backend allows Orca to communicate directly
> with Speech Dispatcher.  See http://live.gnome.org/Orca/SpeechDispatcher
>
> Did you try using Speech Dispatcher with anything else than espeak?
>
> Best regards, Tomas
>
>
> 

Re: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work

[Michael Whapples]

That currancy thing, it is common for TTS to say sign first. Even if that 
rule was to be changed, I don't think it would ever be fully corrected, as 
sometimes I have found websites where the currancy sign is separated from 
the number by a space, etc.

The year, again could this really be corrected properly? Would something get 
nineteen ninety nine visits? Many people say that this year is two thousand 
and seven, so the rule to refer to numbers as numbers to me makes more 
sense, than making four digits a year. The only possible exception is when 
giving a date eg. 12/02/1997 is possibly very unlikely to be anything else.

You don't want software which tries to be too clever and tell you what you 
have, but it gets it wrong. As an example, the UK RealSpeak seems to think I 
have manuscript word in windows.

Generally the user is the one who understands the text, so I would say leave 
it that way.

From
Michael Whapples
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Harvey" <david@d-w-harvey.com>
To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 3:05 PM
Subject: RE: O.T. ESpeak Windows version doesn't work


Hi Jonathan,

Currency signs $, £, etc says dollar 1 instead of one dollar.

Years spoken one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine instead of nineteen
ninety nine.  Years above 2000 are unaffected.

Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Tomas Cerha]

Michael Whapples wrote:
> Some time ago, I did try the speech-dispatcher back-end for orca, but didn't 
> continue to use it as I remember that there were some issues with it knowing 
> when the speech had finished and sometimes missing parts of speech.

Any more details on this would be greatly appreciated.  Part of it might
have already been solved, since the backend now supports speech progress
notifications.  Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Could
you please give an example for each problem?  Thank you very much for
your answer.

> Also whenever I do an update I would need to re-apply the back-end

This will change soon, since the Speech Dispatcher backend will be
included in Orca (in a few weeks).

Best regards, Tomas.

Orca speech-dispatcher back-end, was Re: Espeak, gnome-speech and alsa

[Michael Whapples]

I am slightly unsure exactly myself what the problems were (as I said it
> was sometime ago so can't remember fully), I just remember that at the
> time the gnome-speech speech-dispatcher driver worked better (on my
> computers it didn't seem to have any noticable lag that way, compared
> with the orca speech-dispatcher back-end).
> 
> I will see sometime soon if I still get the problems I was having with
> the orca speech-dispatcher back-end, unless it is going to be added to
> orca within a couple of weeks (as that will help when updating orca as
> it won't need to be added everytime I update).
> 
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Mon, 2007-02-19 at 19:13 +0100, Tomas Cerha wrote:
> > Michael Whapples wrote:
> > > Some time ago, I did try the speech-dispatcher back-end for orca, but didn't 
> > > continue to use it as I remember that there were some issues with it knowing 
> > > when the speech had finished and sometimes missing parts of speech.
> > 
> > Any more details on this would be greatly appreciated.  Part of it might
> > have already been solved, since the backend now supports speech progress
> > notifications.  Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Could
> > you please give an example for each problem?  Thank you very much for
> > your answer.
> > 
> > > Also whenever I do an update I would need to re-apply the back-end
> > 
> > This will change soon, since the Speech Dispatcher backend will be
> > included in Orca (in a few weeks).
> > 
> > Best regards, Tomas.
> > 
> >