[Kde-accessibility] Fwd: FT: ANNOUNCE 1.4.3

Tue, 28 Jan 2003 23:16:16 -0500

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I didn't read all this mail yet, but surely, it's GOOD NEWS! :)

- ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: FT: ANNOUNCE 1.4.3
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:50:15 -0500
From: Alan W Black <awb@cs.cmu.edu>
To: festival-talk@cstr.ed.ac.uk

message from Alan W Black <awb@cs.cmu.edu> to festival-talk
=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D=
 =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D

        The Festival Speech Synthesis System version 1.4.3
         and Edinburgh Speech Tools Library version 1.2.3
                            28th Jan 2003

Festival offers a general framework for building speech synthesis
systems as well as including examples of various modules.  As a whole
it offers full text to speech through a number APIs: from shell level,
though a Scheme command interpreter, as a C++ library, from Java, and
an Emacs interface.  Festival is multi-lingual (currently English
(British and American), and Spanish) though English is the most
advanced.  Other groups release new languages for the system.
And full tools and documentation for build new voices are
available through Carnegie Mellon's FestVox project (http://festvox.org)

The system is written in C++ and uses the Edinburgh Speech Tools
Library for low level architecture and has a Scheme (SIOD) based
command interpreter for control.  Documentation is given in the FSF
texinfo format which can generate, a printed manual, info files and
HTML.

Festival is free software.  Festival and the speech tools are
distributed under an X11-type licence allowing unrestricted commercial
and non-commercial use alike.

This distribution includes:
   * Full English (British and American English) text to speech
   * Full C++ source for modules, SIOD interpreter, and Scheme library
   * Lexicon based on CMULEX and OALD (OALD is restricted to non-commerci=
al
     use only)
   * Edinburgh Speech Tools, low level C++ library
   * British English Male (for residual LPC resynthesis 8k and 16k versio=
ns)
   * 2 American English Male (for residual LPC resynthesis 8k and 16k
 versions) * 4 other voices using MBROLA based diphone synthesis (1 Briti=
sh
 Male, 2 American Males and 1 American Female).
   * Castilian Spanish Male (for residual LPC resynthesis 11k version)
   * British English Male (for spike excited LPC resynthesis 10k version)
   * Full documentation (html, postscript and GNU info format)

Note there are some licence restrictions on the voices themselves.

Festival version 1.4.3 sources, voices, and Linux binaries are
available from

In Europe:
    http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival
In North America:
    http://festvox.org/festival
and
    http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/festival/download.html

Requirements

To run Festival you need:
   * A Unix machine, Festival has compiled and run on Suns (SunOS and
     Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, SGIs and DEC Alphas but should be portable
     to any standard Unix machine.
   * A C++ compiler: we have used GCC  version 2.7.2, 2.95.x
     2.96.x, 3.x, and egcs.  Other C++ compilers are
     probably possible with perhaps some minor chanages
   * GNU Make any recent version
   * Audio hardware, /dev/audio (8 bit and 16 bit on Suns, Linux
     and FreeBSD) and NCD's NAS network transparent audio system
     are supported directly but Festival supports the execution of
     any Unix command that can play audio files.

There is also support for building the system under Windows NT and
95/98/2000/XP.  We have successfully ran the system complied with Cygnus'
GNU win32 package and Microsoft's Visual C++, instructions are
included

New in 1.4.3 version
   * Support for the new versions of C++ that have been released
   * Bug fixes to reduce "chipmunk" audio output with some audio drivers
   * clunits unit selection improvements
   * WFST training support
   * XML markup for singing synthesis
   * lots of small bugs fixeds
   * Initial Apple OS X support (under gcc 3.2)
   * "Building Voices in Festival" document describing process of buildin=
g
     new voices in the system
       http://festvox.org/

Alan W Black (CMU) and Rob Clark (Edinburgh)
28th Jan 2003

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------=
-
Alan W Black                                email: awb@cs.cmu.edu
Language Technologies Institute             http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/
Carnegie Mellon University                  tel: +1-412-268-6299
5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA, 15213, USA. fax: +1-412-268-6298

=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D=
 =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D
=09=09=09       Sent Via festival-talk@cstr.ed.ac.uk
=09=09        To unsubscribe mail majordomo@cstr.ed.ac.uk

- -------------------------------------------------------

- --=20
Pupeno: pupeno@pupeno.com
http://www.pupeno.com/~pupeno
- ---
Help the hungry children of Argentina,
please go to (and make it your homepage):
http://www.porloschicos.com/servlet/PorLosChicos?comando=3Ddonar
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+N1WTLr8z5XzmSDQRAiLOAKDF/HzzfkBTH2WSDuUiC1Rj6K8SmACghNGb
n0UrULK4NnynHuyHxdta7bI=3D
=3DKc4u
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----