speech-dispatcher questions

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
As I said in a different message I am wanting the apollo to work with orca, 
so if there is a different way to get it working, then that is fine. I did 
notice that orca can use emacspeak servers, but it doesn't support the 
apollo in the orca module, it may just need adding, or may be missed out due 
to the reasons you mentioned (index marks).

I understand what you say about software synthesisers (and do use them in 
other cases), but in this case, as I have the hardware synthesiser, it is 
being used on a desktop where I have a high quality sound card and plan to 
get as much from it in quality as possible (and software speech gets in the 
way), you hopefully understand some of the reasons to use the hardware synth 
in my case. Admittedly these arguments may not be strong enough if I had to 
buy the synth, and I may look at alternatives such as the second sound card 
for speech output, but as I have the synth so no extra cost to use it.

From
Michael Whapples
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hynek Hanke" <hanke at brailcom.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 11:07 PM
Subject: Re: speech-dispatcher questions


>> >> How can I get my apollo synth working with speech-dispatcher? I 
>> >> noticed
>> >> the apollo.conf file in the modules directory, but no sign of it in 
>> >> the
>> >> speechd.conf file to add the module. I tried the following line 
>> >> without
>> >> the quotes surrounding the entire line
>> >> "AddModule "apollo"    "sd_apollo"    "apollo.conf""
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> currently the only way to use the apollo synthesizer in Speech
> Dispatcher is via the Generic output module using some apollo-say
> command (if there is any) and some configuration script for the module.
>
> I'm sorry we've got you confused by the apollo.conf file in the
> distribution. This is unfortunatelly a mistake. We had an output
> module for apollo long time ago, but our Apollo synthesizer we had at
> that time didn't even support any kind of index marks or notification of
> speech termination.
>
> To give some background, there is a requirement on all Dispatcher output
> modules to be able to tell when the speech has terminated. Without it,
> much of the Dispatcher functionality is broken. It can't synchronize
> messages correctly inside and between various applications. For this
> reason, we have decided to remove the module. You won't get far if we
> would have kept it since this is also a basic requirement in Orca and
> elsewhere. I forgot to also remove the configuration file from the
> distribution.
>
> I know some later versions of the Apollo synthesizers include some
> support for notifications. If there is enough wish for a driver to be
> included in Speech Dispatcher, it will be done.
>
> However, I'd suggest that you try to find alternative ways using
> software synthesis. These hardware synths are quite simple, non free
> software, many times also quite expensive (so not a solution for
> everyone). If we need some feature, it is not possible to extend them,
> so it holds back our progress on accessibility (while we can extend
> things like Festival and eSpeak pretty easily to suite our needs).
> Of course there are still valid reasons to use hardware synthesis,
> but in longer term, it definitely pays of to support free software
> synthesis -- by the developers and by the users.
>
> In the meantime, unless somebody wants to offer to develop a full
> output module, then if you like, we can try to create a generic
> configuration script for Apollo. But I need your cooperation, since
> I don't own the device. Let me know off-list.
>
> With regards,
> Hynek Hanke
>
>
>
>
>