Speex: Open-source, patent-free speech coding (fwd)

[Geoff Shang]

Hi al:

Here's a long-awaited development.  Definitely something to keep an eye on.

Geoff.

From: Jean-Marc Valin <jean-marc.valin at hermes.usherb.ca>

Hi,

We would like to announce the first release of the Speex project. Speex
(http://speex.sourceforge.net) is an open-source (LGPL), patent-free
compression format allowing an alternative to expensive proprietary
codecs. Unlike Ogg Vorbis which compresses general audio, Speex is
designed especially for speech. For that reason, Speex is meant to be a
complement to Vorbis. Since it is specialized for voice communications,
it is possible to attain lower (compared to Ogg Vorbis/MP3) bit-rates in
the 8-32 kbps/channel range. Possible applications include Voice over IP
(VoIP) applications, Internet audio streaming at low bit-rate and
archiving of speech data (e.g. voice mail).

This first version of Speex supports fixed bit-rate CELP coding at 14.5
kbps for speech sampled at 8 kHz (narrowband) and at 28.5 kbps for 16
kHz (wideband) speech. Future releases will likely provide a wider
choice of bit-rates, better quality, as well as variable bit-rate (VBR)
and discontinuous transmission (DTX).

Disclaimer:

Note that this is a preliminary release and that bit-rates, quality and
bitstream definition will change in the future. This means that the
format used in this release will not be compatible with future releases.
Also note that this software has so far received only a minimum amount
of testing, so it may break or do unexpected things.

-- 
Jean-Marc Valin, M.Sc.A.
LABORIUS (http://www.gel.usherb.ca/laborius)
Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada