Festival Module for Speakup

Festival Module for Speakup

[Matteo Fasanella]

Hi, I wrote a Festival Module for Speakup.

It is part of a project called Linux 4D (linux for disabled), I'm 
working on, with an Italian Association for disabled people.

The code is here: 
http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D/codice/speakup-festival.tar.gz

The Homepage of Linux 4D Project is: http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D

There are also some instruction on how to install it 
(http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D/docs/spkup-fest.html), but are only 
in italian.

To install the module, you have to untar the package and copy in a 
directory; then "cd" there and you'll find a "usr" directory.
Copy all the files present in "usr" subdirectory, in the corresponding 
"/usr" subdirectory.
Then reconfig the kernel (with "make config" o "make menuconfig") and 
activate the Festival Module, and you can choose "fest" as default synth.
Them go back in the package directory and do "make" to compile the user 
part of the module ("middleware").
After then, you can reboot the machine, load the festival demon and load 
the "middleware" program.

If everythings went well, you'll hear your system speaking...


Happy working...  :-)


    Matteo Fasanella

 

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, Matteo Fasanella wrote:

> Hi, I wrote a Festival Module for Speakup.
>
Hello,

Myself and my two project partenors are working along the same lines as
you.  See our (somewhat outdated) website at http://users.wpi.edu/~blinux
for a description of our work.  Our code uses the device file system to
transfer the data while yours appears to use a system call that was added
for the purpose.  Our code also includes SMP protections even though
Speakup itself does not on the theory that sometime soon it may.

The reason I am writing you is that your code does not mention anywhere
(except in festival.h) under what lisence the code is being released.  If
you would tell us if your code is GPL'ed or under some similar lisence
that would be useful as we may wish to use your middleware.c file as the
basis on which to build our own.

Thank You,

Owen Smith
ender3rd@wpi.edu
blinux@wpi.edu

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Buddy Brannan]

Wouldn't it have to be GPL? (Speakup is itself GPL...) 
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Matteo Fasanella]

Owen Patrick Smith wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Myself and my two project partenors are working along the same lines as
>you.  See our (somewhat outdated) website at http://users.wpi.edu/~blinux
>for a description of our work. Our code uses the device file system to
>transfer the data while yours appears to use a system call that was added
>for the purpose.  Our code also includes SMP protections even though
>Speakup itself does not on the theory that sometime soon it may.
>

I didn't take care of smp, cause I think most of user don't have a 
multiprocessor machine; instead, one of our Project Requisite was a 
"real time" behaviour on a Pentium II 233 machine.
However, we should consider to include a smp protection, for a complete 
support.

For interaction between kernel and userlan, I considered three different 
approach:
- via dev fs
- via proc fs
- via system call

and the most efficient was the third case, so was implemented via system 
call, even if devfs e procfs are more flexible.


>The reason I am writing you is that your code does not mention anywhere
>(except in festival.h) under what lisence the code is being released.  If
>you would tell us if your code is GPL'ed or under some similar lisence
>that would be useful as we may wish to use your middleware.c file as the
>basis on which to build our own.
>  
>

Sorry... all the code is under GPL...
I wrote about it on the website, but I forget to add the license file 
into the tarball.


Matteo

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Buddy Brannan]

Hi,

OK...couple questions on getting this running (thanks for the instructions):

1. After the kernel is compiled, to start festival daemon, you use
what command? I seem to have festival installed, but I haven't had
much cause to use it.

2. Have you tried to use it with flite--and does it work?
(www.cmuflite.org) Same question as above.

Thanks.
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Matteo Fasanella]

Buddy Brannan wrote:

>Hi,
>
>OK...couple questions on getting this running (thanks for the instructions):
>
>1. After the kernel is compiled, to start festival daemon, you use
>what command? I seem to have festival installed, but I haven't had
>much cause to use it.
>

I use "festival --server", to start it in daemon mode...

For installation, howeve, we are think to release a precompiled kernel 
with speakup-festival support enabled.


>2. Have you tried to use it with flite--and does it work?
>(www.cmuflite.org) Same question as above.
>
>Thanks.
>  
>
I look at it, but I don't use it, 'cause of Italian voice are best with 
festival+MBROLA, and works well on a Pentium II machine (as in our 
prerequisites).

Matteo

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Jacob Schmude]

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Hi
OK, just two questions:
1. Was this developed using speakup 1.00 stable or the CVS releases? I'm 
hoping the CVS release, as I use kernel 2.4.20 and really want to try this 
thing out as I'm not sure how much longer my HW synth's going to last.
2. What, exactly, is the festival daemon? I've got festival installed here, 
but I don't see any sort of daemon, just the main program, as well as a 
client program. Is the daemon the festival server (what you get when you 
launch festival with the --server option)?

Regards
Jacob

At 15:56 3/24/2003 +0100, you wrote:

>Hi, I wrote a Festival Module for Speakup.
>
>It is part of a project called Linux 4D (linux for disabled), I'm working 
>on, with an Italian Association for disabled people.
>
>The code is here: 
>http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D/codice/speakup-festival.tar.gz
>
>The Homepage of Linux 4D Project is: http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D
>
>There are also some instruction on how to install it 
>(http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D/docs/spkup-fest.html), but are only 
>in italian.
>
>To install the module, you have to untar the package and copy in a 
>directory; then "cd" there and you'll find a "usr" directory.
>Copy all the files present in "usr" subdirectory, in the corresponding 
>"/usr" subdirectory.
>Then reconfig the kernel (with "make config" o "make menuconfig") and 
>activate the Festival Module, and you can choose "fest" as default synth.
>Them go back in the package directory and do "make" to compile the user 
>part of the module ("middleware").
>After then, you can reboot the machine, load the festival demon and load 
>the "middleware" program.
>
>If everythings went well, you'll hear your system speaking...
>
>
>Happy working...  :-)
>
>
>    Matteo Fasanella

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Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Matteo Fasanella]

Jacob Schmude wrote:

> Hi
> OK, just two questions:
> 1. Was this developed using speakup 1.00 stable or the CVS releases? 
> I'm hoping the CVS release, as I use kernel 2.4.20 and really want to 
> try this thing out as I'm not sure how much longer my HW synth's going 
> to last. 


It was developed using Speakup 1.00 stable, on a 2.4.19 kernel, even if 
it should work with other kernel release.


>
> 2. What, exactly, is the festival daemon? I've got festival installed 
> here, but I don't see any sort of daemon, just the main program, as 
> well as a client program. Is the daemon the festival server (what you 
> get when you launch festival with the --server option)?
>
> Regards
> Jacob


Yes, with "festival daemon" I mean "the daemon mode of festival", i.e. 
"festival --server".


    Matteo

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Buddy Brannan]

I'm also trying to build my own kernel with Festival support for
Speakup. I'm having an issue with the kernel building (don't have the
error here, but it's definitely something witth Speakup). Here's what
I've done...and I *think* it should be right: 

1. Downloaded a 2.4.19 kernel tarball, untarred it. (This is for my
laptop, currently running 2.4.18. I'm still interested in the solution
to the precompiled kernel issue I posted earlier, BTW.) 

2. Copied the stuff from the speakup-festival tarball
(i.e. /usr/include tree and then the stuff from usr/src/linux into
linux-2.4.19/*) 

3. Installed Speakup V1.00

4. Copied the speakup part of the tarball (the separate speakup
directory) into linux-2.4.20/drivers/char/speakup

5. Configured and attempted to build the kernel. Here's where I'm a
bit confused:

On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 03:56:27PM +0100, Matteo Fasanella wrote:
> To install the module, you have to untar the package and copy in a 
> directory; then "cd" there and you'll find a "usr" directory.
> Copy all the files present in "usr" subdirectory, in the corresponding 
> "/usr" subdirectory.

This is where things aren't quite clear. The speakup directory in this
tree is empty, which is why I copied the stuff from speakup directory
in the tarball (separate from the one copied into /usr/src/linux/
...). That is to say, /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/speakup is
empty. That is, until I install Speakup 1.00 and then copy the stuff
from the festival-speakup directory in. ... 

This'll be great--one less thing to carry with the laptop :)

-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio

Re: Festival Module for Speakup

[Matteo Fasanella]

Hi, sorry if I reply only now, but last week there were some problems 
with our dept network...



Buddy Brannan wrote:

>I'm also trying to build my own kernel with Festival support for
>Speakup. I'm having an issue with the kernel building (don't have the
>error here, but it's definitely something witth Speakup). Here's what
>I've done...and I *think* it should be right: 
>
>1. Downloaded a 2.4.19 kernel tarball, untarred it. (This is for my
>laptop, currently running 2.4.18. I'm still interested in the solution
>to the precompiled kernel issue I posted earlier, BTW.) 
>
>2. Copied the stuff from the speakup-festival tarball
>(i.e. /usr/include tree and then the stuff from usr/src/linux into
>linux-2.4.19/*) 
>
>3. Installed Speakup V1.00
>
>  
>

You should first install Speakup, and then install speakup-festival...



>This is where things aren't quite clear. The speakup directory in this
>tree is empty,
>
Yes, you tried the "first" version of tarball, but some days later I 
"patched" it and I made a second version, downloadable from the same 
address:
http://weblab.deis.unibo.it/Linux4D/codice/speakup-festival.tar.gz


Matteo

A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

Hello All,

As some of you are aware myself a two other students have been working on
getting Festival and Speakup to talk to one another for a while.  At this
point we have a beta version of our code working.  Everything should work
fine but the installation process needs streamlining and there are some
features which are not yet implemented.  For some basic information about
our project see http://users.wpi.edu/~blinux to get the code directly just
go to http://www.wpi.edu/~blinux/speakup-modifications.tar.gz but be sure
to read the installation instructions at
http://www.wpi.edu/~blinux/installation_instructions.txt before you
attempt to install.

To help with our project please fill out a brief survey at
http://www.wpi.edu/~ender3rd/cgi-bin/survey/survey.html

Please reply with any comments, questions or bug reports.

HtH

Owen Smith
ender3rd@wpi.edu

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Jacob Schmude]

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Hi
I've actually got this module working. Compiled and ran just fine. Just one problem though: I can't shut it up! Is silencing speech one of the things that 
wasn't implemented yet? Because if it is that should be the first thing to get working, only thing worse than a computer that won't talk is one that talks too 
much. Also, I've noticed a long delay, probably about 1 second, between each word spoken and am hearing things like "pitch_string" in between 
keystrokes, and before reading starts. Is this normal for the current state of the module, or have I missed a step in installation? Hey, it talks, that's more than 
what it did before. Progress, right? I'll still use yasr with eflite until the speakup module can learn to shut up, though the voice quality is nowhere what I get 
when I link festival and mbrola together. Keep working on it, guys.

On Tue, 1 Apr 2003 14:51:20 -0500 (EST), Owen Patrick Smith wrote:

>Hello All,

>As some of you are aware myself a two other students have been working on
>getting Festival and Speakup to talk to one another for a while.  At this
>point we have a beta version of our code working.  Everything should work
>fine but the installation process needs streamlining and there are some
>features which are not yet implemented.  For some basic information about
>our project see http://users.wpi.edu/~blinux to get the code directly just
>go to http://www.wpi.edu/~blinux/speakup-modifications.tar.gz but be sure
>to read the installation instructions at
>http://www.wpi.edu/~blinux/installation_instructions.txt before you
>attempt to install.

>To help with our project please fill out a brief survey at
>http://www.wpi.edu/~ender3rd/cgi-bin/survey/survey.html

>Please reply with any comments, questions or bug reports.



[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2288 bytes --]

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

We thought that we'd fixed that problem, that was one of the main
difficulties that slowed development over the past couple of weeks.  The
delay I'm not sure about can you send me your system specs privately?  The
pitch_string bit is a known bug.

Thanks for your support,

Owen Smith
ender3rd@wpi.edu

On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, Jacob Schmude wrote:

> Hi I've actually got this module working. Compiled and ran just fine.
> Just one problem though: I can't shut it up! Is silencing speech one of
> the things that wasn't implemented yet? Because if it is that should be
> the first thing to get working, only thing worse than a computer that
> won't talk is one that talks too much. Also, I've noticed a long delay,
> probably about 1 second, between each word spoken and am hearing things
> like "pitch_string" in between keystrokes, and before reading starts. Is
> this normal for the current state of the module, or have I missed a step
> in installation? Hey, it talks, that's more than what it did before.
> Progress, right? I'll still use yasr with eflite until the speakup
> module can learn to shut up, though the voice quality is nowhere what I
> get when I link festival and mbrola together. Keep working on it, guys.
>

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

Ok we've figured out the problems.  The delay is caused by the fact that
we're sending the data to festival one word at a time so that if the
shutup character is recieved we can shutup the synth at the end of the
current word.  However this causes festival to delay for a fairly large
amount of time between each word because festival thinks that each word is
a separate statement.  We think that the delay between statements is
configurable at run-time and are going to e-mail Fesstivals dev team to
ask how to change it.  After that a small change to our middleware program
should fix the issue, I'll let you know when its been delt with.

As for the shutup function it works for us.  However please note that the
keymap that is on the website appears to be outdated.  The CVS Speakup
shutup key is (with numlock ON) keypad-minus.  Please let us know if that
was what you were using or if using keypad-minus fixes the problem.

HtH

Owen Smith
ender3rd@wpi.edu


On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Jacob Schmude wrote:

> Hi
> My system specs are as follows:
> AMD Athlon XP2600, 2.133ghz
> Realtek ALC-650 audio chip (built into the motherboard)
> 80G hd with 8meg cache
> Those are the only specs I could think of that would help. As for the
> delay, it's just that, a delay of about a second between each word.
> Don't think this has to do with my computer speed (I've got plenty of
> that). Festival itself, when I use it without middleware (I.e. just type
> some text into it) doesn't exhibit the delay. Nor does it exhibit a
> delay when I use the festival_client program which comes with it. So the
> problem, near as I can tell, is centered on the module or the middleware
> program, or some interaction of the two.
>

RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Saqib Shaikh]

Hi Owen and all,

Have you considered using Flite rather than Festival?  Flite is much
smaller, much more responsive, and should be useable through the same
interface.

Saqib


-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-admin@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-admin@braille.uwo.ca]On Behalf Of Owen Patrick Smith
Sent: 02 April 2003 21:48
To: Jacob Schmude
Cc: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup


Ok we've figured out the problems.  The delay is caused by the fact that
we're sending the data to festival one word at a time so that if the
shutup character is recieved we can shutup the synth at the end of the
current word.  However this causes festival to delay for a fairly large
amount of time between each word because festival thinks that each word is
a separate statement.  We think that the delay between statements is
configurable at run-time and are going to e-mail Fesstivals dev team to
ask how to change it.  After that a small change to our middleware program
should fix the issue, I'll let you know when its been delt with.

As for the shutup function it works for us.  However please note that the
keymap that is on the website appears to be outdated.  The CVS Speakup
shutup key is (with numlock ON) keypad-minus.  Please let us know if that
was what you were using or if using keypad-minus fixes the problem.

HtH

Owen Smith
ender3rd@wpi.edu


On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Jacob Schmude wrote:

> Hi
> My system specs are as follows:
> AMD Athlon XP2600, 2.133ghz
> Realtek ALC-650 audio chip (built into the motherboard)
> 80G hd with 8meg cache
> Those are the only specs I could think of that would help. As for the
> delay, it's just that, a delay of about a second between each word.
> Don't think this has to do with my computer speed (I've got plenty of
> that). Festival itself, when I use it without middleware (I.e. just type
> some text into it) doesn't exhibit the delay. Nor does it exhibit a
> delay when I use the festival_client program which comes with it. So the
> problem, near as I can tell, is centered on the module or the middleware
> program, or some interaction of the two.
>



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

RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

Yes we have, FLite is one of the programs which we are planning on adding
support for in the near future.  The nature of the middleware program is
such that it should be easy to add support for more programs, to be chosen
at run-time however we thought it best to get it working for one and then
improve the capabilities later.  Don't worry FLite support is coming.

Owen

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Saqib Shaikh wrote:

> Hi Owen and all,
>
> Have you considered using Flite rather than Festival?  Flite is much
> smaller, much more responsive, and should be useable through the same
> interface.
>
> Saqib
>

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Jacob Schmude]

Hi
Well, keypad minus says "parked/unparked" just like it used to. Also, keypad enter was the shut-up key for my doubletalk which I ran this same CVS on 
until it quit a few days ago, so I don't see how the shut-up key is keypad minus. In any case it still won't shut up at all, even when pressing other keys with 
interrupt enabled. Nothing shuts it up. Not sure if it's relevant, but I'm using the ALSA drivers as the kernel-packaged drivers do not support my chip. Festival 
works fine with the alsa drivers, but you never know, I'm using it through the OSS emulation. Also I've noticed that before starting to speak something new, I 
here the letter "f". This happens whenever I initiate speech or when speakup starts talking on its own, it does not happen between words. I'm running 
festival 1.4.2 which seems to be the latest version. Is there a newer version I should be getting? Also, should it matter what voice I use (not that it made a 
difference on this system)? I rather like the mbrola_us2 voice and so have festival running that. But the regular US english voice (kal16K) produced the 
same results.
Out of curiosity, is mbrola one of the synths on the todo list? It's smaller than festival (not as small as flite) but has better sound quality.
On Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:48:16 -0500 (EST), Owen Patrick Smith wrote:

>Ok we've figured out the problems.  The delay is caused by the fact that
>we're sending the data to festival one word at a time so that if the
>shutup character is recieved we can shutup the synth at the end of the
>current word.  However this causes festival to delay for a fairly large
>amount of time between each word because festival thinks that each word is
>a separate statement.  We think that the delay between statements is
>configurable at run-time and are going to e-mail Fesstivals dev team to
>ask how to change it.  After that a small change to our middleware program
>should fix the issue, I'll let you know when its been delt with.

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

The thing about the shutup key was a miscommunication between me and one
of my parteners when we were discussing what might be wrong.  Apparently
what happened is that Speakup clobbers certain characters and right before
we published our code we changed the SYNTH_CLEAR_CHAR to one of these
values as opposed to '!' which we had been using for debugging reasons.
Our website now has a link to an updated version of the code which should
resolve the shutup problem.  The new version should also amoriolate the
delay problem because our middleware program now sends the data to the TTS
program in one-line chunks instead of the previous one-word chunks, a
change that also should improve the intonation of the output.  However
this also means that, at present, the program will only shutup at the end
of a line.  A few other bugs were also fixed in this release, mostly
related to dealing with full buffers.  Please give the new code a try and
let us know if it helps to fix the problems.

As notes our code should be voice/ALSA/OSS independant and although there
is a slightly newer version of festival available (1.4.3) that should not
be an issue.  As to including Mbrola it is on our list although since it
does not have full TTS capability but only phoneme-to-sound an additional
layer of software will be required so it may be a while.

HtH

Owen

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Jacob Schmude wrote:

> Hi Well, keypad minus says "parked/unparked" just like it used to. Also,
> keypad enter was the shut-up key for my doubletalk which I ran this same
> CVS on until it quit a few days ago, so I don't see how the shut-up key
> is keypad minus. In any case it still won't shut up at all, even when
> pressing other keys with interrupt enabled. Nothing shuts it up. Not
> sure if it's relevant, but I'm using the ALSA drivers as the
> kernel-packaged drivers do not support my chip. Festival works fine with
> the alsa drivers, but you never know, I'm using it through the OSS
> emulation. Also I've noticed that before starting to speak something
> new, I here the letter "f". This happens whenever I initiate speech or
> when speakup starts talking on its own, it does not happen between
> words. I'm running festival 1.4.2 which seems to be the latest version.
> Is there a newer version I should be getting? Also, should it matter
> what voice I use (not that it made a difference on this system)? I
> rather like the mbrola_us2 voice and so have festival running that. But
> the regular US english voice (kal16K) produced the same results. Out of
> curiosity, is mbrola one of the synths on the todo list? It's smaller
> than festival (not as small as flite) but has better sound quality. On

Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Jacob Schmude]

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Hi
Thanks for working on this so quickly. The delay problem's gone, and the 
shut up key works as expected--almost. It does shut it up, but I 
hear"asterisk squeak asterisk" every time I use it, so I have to be careful 
not to use it more than once or it won't stop saying that. Before speakup 
speaks I also here the letter F.
A small suggestion: festival works best, when speaking by line, if a period 
(.) is put after the line. Just something I've noticed while working with 
it. At present the module seems to have a bit of trouble finishing all its 
statements at once, which is why I suggest this. Sure it may mess up the 
intonation a little but it'll still be the best software synth solution for 
linux. Not like festival really has much intonation in its default settings 
anyway. Hey, this is certainly progress. Too bad software synths won't be 
small enough to fit on root disks... but I suppose nothing can be done 
about that.


At 13:29 4/3/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>The thing about the shutup key was a miscommunication between me and one
>of my parteners when we were discussing what might be wrong.  Apparently
>what happened is that Speakup clobbers certain characters and right before
>we published our code we changed the SYNTH_CLEAR_CHAR to one of these
>values as opposed to '!' which we had been using for debugging reasons.
>Our website now has a link to an updated version of the code which should
>resolve the shutup problem.  The new version should also amoriolate the
>delay problem because our middleware program now sends the data to the TTS
>program in one-line chunks instead of the previous one-word chunks, a
>change that also should improve the intonation of the output.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 167 bytes --]


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RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Shaikh, Saqib]

Just to confirm: do you mean Flite or Eflite?  Eflite is an Emacspeak
server for Flite - and I don't think there's any point in making Speakup
support the Emacspeak server.  But chances are you meant Flite, the
actual synthesiser - but just to make sure.

Saqib


-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Patrick Smith [mailto:ender3rd@WPI.EDU] 
Sent: 02 April 2003 22:02
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup


Yes we have, FLite is one of the programs which we are planning on
adding support for in the near future.  The nature of the middleware
program is such that it should be easy to add support for more programs,
to be chosen at run-time however we thought it best to get it working
for one and then improve the capabilities later.  Don't worry FLite
support is coming.

Owen

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Saqib Shaikh wrote:

> Hi Owen and all,
>
> Have you considered using Flite rather than Festival?  Flite is much 
> smaller, much more responsive, and should be useable through the same 
> interface.
>
> Saqib
>



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RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

Yes, I meant FLite not EFLite.

Owen

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Shaikh, Saqib wrote:

> Just to confirm: do you mean Flite or Eflite?  Eflite is an Emacspeak
> server for Flite - and I don't think there's any point in making Speakup
> support the Emacspeak server.  But chances are you meant Flite, the
> actual synthesiser - but just to make sure.
>
> Saqib
>

RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Dawes, Stephen]

What is your web site again Owen?

Do you have a link to the festival site on it?

I'm curious to give your stuff a try.


Stephen Dawes  <B.A., B.Sc.>
The City of Calgary                   |  Phone: (403) 268-5527
   Web Business Office #8300          |  Fax:   (403) 268-6423
   PO Box 2100 Postal Station M.      |  Email: Stephen.Dawes@calgary.ca
   Calgary, Alberta, Canada. T2P 2M5  |  Web:  http://www.calgary.ca





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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen Patrick Smith [mailto:ender3rd@WPI.EDU] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 11:30 AM
> To: Jacob Schmude
> Cc: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> Subject: Re: A Second Festival Module for Speakup
> 
> 
> The thing about the shutup key was a miscommunication between 
> me and one of my parteners when we were discussing what might 
> be wrong.  Apparently what happened is that Speakup clobbers 
> certain characters and right before we published our code we 
> changed the SYNTH_CLEAR_CHAR to one of these values as 
> opposed to '!' which we had been using for debugging reasons. 
> Our website now has a link to an updated version of the code 
> which should resolve the shutup problem.  The new version 
> should also amoriolate the delay problem because our 
> middleware program now sends the data to the TTS program in 
> one-line chunks instead of the previous one-word chunks, a 
> change that also should improve the intonation of the output. 
>  However this also means that, at present, the program will 
> only shutup at the end of a line.  A few other bugs were also 
> fixed in this release, mostly related to dealing with full 
> buffers.  Please give the new code a try and let us know if 
> it helps to fix the problems.
> 
> As notes our code should be voice/ALSA/OSS independant and 
> although there is a slightly newer version of festival 
> available (1.4.3) that should not be an issue.  As to 
> including Mbrola it is on our list although since it does not 
> have full TTS capability but only phoneme-to-sound an 
> additional layer of software will be required so it may be a while.
> 
> HtH
> 
> Owen
> 
> On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Jacob Schmude wrote:
> 
> > Hi Well, keypad minus says "parked/unparked" just like it used to. 
> > Also, keypad enter was the shut-up key for my doubletalk 
> which I ran 
> > this same CVS on until it quit a few days ago, so I don't 
> see how the 
> > shut-up key is keypad minus. In any case it still won't shut up at 
> > all, even when pressing other keys with interrupt enabled. Nothing 
> > shuts it up. Not sure if it's relevant, but I'm using the 
> ALSA drivers 
> > as the kernel-packaged drivers do not support my chip. 
> Festival works 
> > fine with the alsa drivers, but you never know, I'm using 
> it through 
> > the OSS emulation. Also I've noticed that before starting to speak 
> > something new, I here the letter "f". This happens whenever 
> I initiate 
> > speech or when speakup starts talking on its own, it does 
> not happen 
> > between words. I'm running festival 1.4.2 which seems to be 
> the latest 
> > version. Is there a newer version I should be getting? 
> Also, should it 
> > matter what voice I use (not that it made a difference on this 
> > system)? I rather like the mbrola_us2 voice and so have festival 
> > running that. But the regular US english voice (kal16K) 
> produced the 
> > same results. Out of curiosity, is mbrola one of the synths on the 
> > todo list? It's smaller than festival (not as small as 
> flite) but has 
> > better sound quality. On
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca 
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/> speakup
> 

RE: A Second Festival Module for Speakup

[Owen Patrick Smith]

Ah yes, I should have said. The project website is:
http://users.wpi.edu/~blinux

there is a link to Festival most of the way down on the main page.

Hope you find it useful,

Owen Smith

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, Dawes, Stephen wrote:

> What is your web site again Owen?
>
> Do you have a link to the festival site on it?
>
> I'm curious to give your stuff a try.
>
>
> Stephen Dawes  <B.A., B.Sc.>
> The City of Calgary                   |  Phone: (403) 268-5527
>    Web Business Office #8300          |  Fax:   (403) 268-6423
>    PO Box 2100 Postal Station M.      |  Email: Stephen.Dawes@calgary.ca
>    Calgary, Alberta, Canada. T2P 2M5  |  Web:  http://www.calgary.ca