20 Mar 2001

John Rye (Dolphin Oceanic Ltd)

Text to speech (TTS) synthesis is nowadays an integral part of many PC systems whether intended as an access aid for visually impaired users or not. Sophisticated concatenative techniques can provide more natural sounding speech at an ever lower total cost. Also, some formant synthesis techniques are still useful. This paper will discuss these and some other aspects of TTS, which can be important when TTS is being used as an access aid by visually impaired computer users, for instance in the workplace. The particular subjects discussed are the environment and the nature of the texts to be spoken and the need for a quick response and fast intelligible speech. Some of the consequences for TTS system design are also discussed.

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