Re: [Kde-accessibility] IBM TTS SDK now BSD licensed

[Gary Cramblitt <garycramblitt comcast net>]

On Monday 27 March 2006 14:08, George Kraft wrote:
>
> FYI, with IBM approval, I have changed the license on this software from
> CPL to BSD.  This should now be compatible with existing Gnome and KDE
> policies.
>
> http://ibmtts-sdk.sourceforge.net/
>
> Thanks for your feedback.
>
> PS: This SDK does not include the runtime.
>
> George (gk4)

Hi, I'm working on an IBM TTS output module for Speech Dispatcher and have a 
few technical questions.  If this is the wrong forum to ask, perhaps you can 
redirect me?

The IBM TTS API Manual is a bit old (2002).  Is there newer documentation 
available?

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that IBM TTS supports SSML markup.  Is 
there a list of the tags supported?

I'm wondering how/if the SSML mark tag works with Index callbacks.  The ECI 
interface requires an integer Id for each index mark, so what happens when 
text contains something like <mark name="whatever"/>?  Is there a way for my 
output module to be notified when such marks are encountered?

The manual wasn't very clear about synchronization of audio callbacks and 
Index mark callbacks.  I wondered whether a stream of text like this:

text1
index 1
text 2
index 2
...etc

would result in callback ordering

eciWaveformBuffer for text1
eciIndexReply for index mark 1
eciWaveformBuffer for text 2
eciIndexReply for index mark 2
...etc

My testing shows that is indeed the ordering.  Can I count on this in the 
future?

Is the SDK distributed with the commercial IBM TTS package?  I'm wondering if 
we need to redistribute the SDK with Speech Dispatcher.

FYI, the following enums weren't defined in eci.h.  There are probably some 
more:

typedef enum {
    eciTextModeDefault = 0,
    eciTextModeAlphaSpell = 1,
    eciTextModeAllSpell = 2,
    eciIRCSpell = 3
} ECITextMode;

Thanks for you help.

-- 
Gary Cramblitt (aka PhantomsDad)
KDE Text-to-Speech Maintainer
http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/index.php