Re: Question about using TTS via the prompt element in VXML

Roopa Trivedi wrote:
> What about the scenario where 2 vendors support the same gender, age,
> language etc and the script writer specifically wants to use vendor #1?
> Is the "name" of the voice recommended to be used as the distinguishing
> factor? Can we assume that this "name" will be unique across all
> vendors?

I think voices in VXML are what fonts are in HTML (or TeX, or Post-
Script)... Maybe that's a good analogy when discussing this question.
From that point of view, "name" of a voice is a possible way to select
a voice, but that name should include the vendor ("foundry") to make
it unique ("Scansoft-Jim", "Viavoice-Rebecca"). One difference is that
font names are usually protected, so when I ask for a Times font, I can
expect to get something which looks at least somewhat similar to any
other Times font. I don't think the same holds for a voice called "Jim".
ScanSoft's Jim might sound very different from IBM's Jim (although
both are probably male american voices).

In general it would be nice to select a voice depending on any mixture
of attributes, e.g. by specifying *some* of the attributes gender,
age(?), language, country, name, vendor, etc., much the same as e.g.
in X Window System I can specify a font similar to "*-Times-bold-*"
when I don't care where the Times font comes from, or I can specify
"Adobe-Times-bold-*" when I insist on having the Adobe voice err font.

Just my $.02,

/lutz

-- 
Lutz Birkhahn                                       System Software Engineer
Adomo Inc. --  10001 N. De Anza Boulevard Suite 220  --  Cupertino, CA 95014

Received on Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:38:17 UTC