Re: [orca-list] gnome-speech, and audio output, moving forward.

["Michael Whapples" <mwhapples aim com>]

Hello,
Here are my thoughts on this. Yes it would be good to have the speech API 
(gnome-speech) handling the audio. I say this, having now seen 
speech-dispatcher 0.6.4, which works well with its espeak driver (not the 
espeak-generic, but the specific espeak driver). I know that some people 
have had issues with the stability of speech-dispatcher in the past, and I 
don't know if those still exist now for those users, but it works well for 
me. So if it was stable for all, then I would say that speech-dispatcher is 
what is needed. Adding to what you said about commercial synths, doesn't 
speech-dispatcher allow use of ibmtts through alsa as speech-dispatcher 
handles the audio, like it does for espeak now, so getting round the issue 
of the commercial synths supporting only OSS.

Also in favour of something like speech-dispatcher is that for those of us 
who don't always want gnome, and may have some systems with only speakup and 
command line stuff, then gnome-speech depends on some gnome stuff and so 
would require gnome to be installed unnecessarily. Also there is the issue 
of conflicts between speech API's, so where I use speakup for command line, 
but may have gnome installed (and orca being used), speech-dispatcher 
handles these two systems trying to use the same synth.

So what I am saying is, is it time to drop gnome-speech, and try and make 
another system such as speech-dispatcher more robust? I think TTSAPI may be 
trying to be the replacement for speech-dispatcher, but I don't know how it 
is performing.

From
Michael Whapples
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Luke Yelavich" <themuso themuso com>
To: "Orca screen reader developers" <orca-list gnome org>; "Ubuntu 
Accessibility Development Mailing List" 
<ubuntu-accessibility-devel lists ubuntu com>; "Gnome Accessibility List" 
<gnome-accessibility-list gnome org>; "GNOME Accessibility Developers" 
<gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 1:22 PM
Subject: [orca-list] gnome-speech, and audio output, moving forward.


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Greetings all.
> For a while now, it has been possible to have multiple audio streams 
> playing at the same time, using ALSA's
> dmix plugin under Linux. This also has meant the ability to have speech 
> audible at the same time as other
> audio. Users have desired the ability to do this for a while now, 
> particularly since it has been possible in
> other operating systems for a long time.
>
> Since eSpeak has been developed, we have had a very usable synthesizer for 
> speech output, which supports a
> growing number of languages. Since this synthesizer is cross-platform, the 
> choice was made by the author to
> use PortAudio, thereby supporting all platforms where PortAudio is 
> available. Since PortAudio v19, it has been
> possible to use Alsa for audio output via PortAudio. In theory, this is 
> good news, however in practice, this
> has created more problems than it should solve, for the following reasons, 
> as far as I see things:
>
> * PortAudio v19 has had no official release, and so seems to be in a 
> rather constant state of flux, making it
> difficult for distros to reliably support a working version.
> * PortAudio's alsa implementation seems to currently be broken, which is 
> evident while using eSpeak, and
> attempting to speak multiple strings of text rapidly over a short period 
> of time.
> * As far as I've seen, there is no easy way for the user to select which 
> output device portaudio should use.
> Added to that, if more than one app is using portaudio, this will affect 
> that application as well as espeak,
> which may not be what the user desires.
> * All proprietary synths only support oss output, which makes simultaneous 
> audio and speech currently
> impossible.
>
> What I would like to propose, is the following. Since a large porshion of 
> GNOME's multimedia framework is now
> using gStreamer, I would like to suggest that we make all gnome-speech 
> drivers use gStreamer, and if possible,
> add another option to the sound preferences, to allow the user to select 
> which soundcard they wish to use for
> speech output. This would result in gstreamer being used via Alsa on 
> Linux, thereby allowing simultaneous
> audio and speech, which would likely happen at the gstreamer level before 
> it even reaches alsa. (I don't
> really know how gstreamer works, so this is a guess on my part.)
>
> - From what I have seen, just about all proprietary synth APIs support 
> sending audio data from the synth back to
> the calling application, thereby allowing the audio to be sent whereever 
> the application wishes. I am well
> aware that gnome-speech was initially designed to not care about how the 
> audio was played, but since its
> initial inclusion in GNOME, gstreamer has become the standard multimedia 
> framework for GNOME, and at least in
> Ubuntu's implementation, allows the user to set different devices for 
> several different uses, such as sound
> events, music and movies, and audio/video conferencing.
>
> I think we owe users the ability to use speech alongside audio, and offer 
> it in an easy to use way, thereby
> putting full control in their hands. Now that we are at the beginning of a 
> new GNOME release, I personally
> think its time to get serious about offering users a deacent screen reader 
> and speech experience, the same, if
> not better than what other operating systems offer.
>
> I have sent this post to these lists, to try and get as wide a viewpoint, 
> and discussion as possible. I would
> appreciate any replies to be sent to all lists, to ensure everybody can 
> participate in the discussion.
>
> I would like to invite both users and developers to express their views on 
> a matter which I believe needs
> resolving. Input from gnome devs, particularly those for gnome-speech is 
> very much welcome.
>
> So, lets sort something out.
> - -- 
> Luke Yelavich
> GPG key: 0xD06320CE
> (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
> Email & MSN: themuso themuso com
> Jabber: themuso jabber org au
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFG78MHjVefwtBjIM4RAmvvAKCHJH5ZlcpwSwweLV9a/1mMJMXQHQCfTdtH
> WXhAp+9KaQv85VOYyGKmtYw=
> =46d4
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----