Slow Down Text To Speech

[Guest Michael Rizk]

Long story short. I have a program that creates the OutDial_New.XML file and appropriate scripts which has the text to be converted into speech. The conversion works fine but all I need to do is slow it down.

 

The problem is though since there is no audio card in the server I cannot change the default Voice Speed. I can move the slider in the Speech applet within Control Panel but it never gets saved to that position.

 

Is there any other way to slow down the TTS without installing a audio card

 

Cheers,

[SupportTeam]

There should be some XML tags you could use to regulate the playback speed etc.

Take a look at

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....ents_say-as.asp

 

and look up the "prosody" element.

 

you may also want to see:

http://voiceguide.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=670

http://voiceguide.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=634

 

and

 

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-speech-synthe...hesis-20020405/

[Guest Guest]

Thanks.. Will check it out. Have bought a audio card just incase also

[Guest Guest]

Installed the audio card and now the speech applet works correctly. Unfortunatly unlike when I tested with a voice modem changing the voice speed slider in the speech applet changed the TTS speed. With a Dialogic card the slider does nothing.

 

So taking your advice I checked out the above sites and used the tag "prosody" with the attribute "rate" as it was supported by SAPI.

 

My sample script

 

Version=5.0

DefaultModuleDisplayHeight=

StartModule=Play 1

RunAtHangup=

StartWithoutAnswer=0

CtmAsiName=

 

[Play 1]

Type=Play

DispSize=69

Txt=Play a sound file

Replay=1,1

strTtsText=<prosody rate="slow" volume="loud">Server with hostname server is down at 1:13 PM 23/10/2003</prosody>

 

Replay=1,1

 

Position=17,17

 

No matter what setting I used I saw no change in the TTS. I'm using SAPI 5.1. I believe it should work in the Text to Speech section of the Play Sound File module from the posts in this forum.

 

Any ideas ? Is my syntax wrong possibly

[SupportTeam]

The 'rate of speech' slider is a TTS (SAPI) system controller and it should work whenever TTS is generated - not too sure why use of Dialogic vs modem is affecting that...

 

Have you tried:

 

<p><prosody rate="slow" volume="loud">Server with hostname server is down at 1:13 PM 23/10/2003</prosody></p>

 

or

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <speak version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis" xml:lang="en-US"><p><prosody rate="slow" volume="loud">Server with hostname server is down at 1:13 PM 23/10/2003</prosody></p></speak>

[Guest Guest]

I have tried both of these and no luck. Tried them with both Absolute and Relative values ie: rate="slow" or rate="-50%". There is no obvious change. (The TTS works as the message is played every time)

 

Any other suggestions ? Besides rebuilding the machine.

 

I have ordered natural voices from AT&T hoping this engine may solve my problems as it also supports these tags.

[SupportTeam]

Do the XML tags work when a modem is used instead of the Dialogic card? The SAPI TTS should work the same regardless of what device is used to answer the telephone calls...

 

Anyway - looked up the command to change the speed in AT&T's docs - and the following command drops the speed to half the standard rate:

 

<p><RATE SPEED="-6"> Server with hostname server is down at 1:13 PM 23/10/2003</RATE></p>

 

Tried it on Win2000 with D/4PCI and AT&T's Natural Voices and it did speak the TTS at half the speed.

 

Wav file which was created by VG and then played is attached

tts9.zip

[Guest Guest]

Thanks. When AT&T comes will test and let you know. Will try to test with modem also and let you know of the outcome.