The CommPower Text-to-Speech Broadcast System (CTBS™) is a customizable text-to-speech desktop or server application, the main function of which is to read ASCII text messages from pre-defined directories and convert the ASCII text into high quality digitized voice (WAV) files using AT&T’s Natural Voices™ TTS engine. The resulting digitized (WAV) files are stored in their respective directories and subsequently scheduled for broadcast (output) to internal voice processing boards and/or transferred to external destinations (via the local area network).
Features
- Fully interactive GUI for application monitoring, control and configuration.
- English and Spanish languages are supported. Both can be used in parallel.
- Can be run from the desktop, command line, or integrated into a custom program.
- The fully customizable dictionary provides a “what-you-see-is-what-you-hear” pronunciation of words. No need to define intricate phoneme definitions.
- Internal scheduler allows broadcast programs to be maintained and continuously played (transmitted).
CTBS runs on a desktop or server PC that would typically connect to the customer’s local area network. The primary function of CTBS is to read ASCII text messages from pre-defined directories and convert the ASCII text into high quality digitized voice (WAV) files using AT&T’s Natural Voices™ TTS engine. The digitized (WAV) files are then stored in their respective directories and subsequently scheduled for broadcast (output) to internal voice processing boards and/or transferred to external destinations (via the local area network).
CTBS assigns a separate server process to each of the available voice types (English, Spanish). The individual server processes allow CTBS to successfully perform simultaneous ASCII-to-WAV file conversions. For each ASCII text message, a client process is initialized that communicates with the applicable (language, gender) server process. When conversion is complete, the applicable client process is terminated.
CTBS provides a fully interactive GUI for application monitoring, control, configuration, dictionary (word) pronunciation, new message creation, modification of existing messages, polling of pre-defined directories with automatic conversion from text to wav file, and automated scheduling capabilities. The CTBS application also provides the capability to convert text files to .wav from within a script, program, or command line.
The pronunciation dictionary (word) provides a “what-you-see-is-what-you-hear” pronunciation of words. For example, the city of Ojai is defined via the GUI as “O hi” and Hueneme as “Why knee me”. No need to spend time defining intricate phoneme definitions.
CommPower 