(19)
(11) EP 1 501 075 A3

(12) EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION

(88) Date of publication A3:
20.04.2005 Bulletin 2005/16

(43) Date of publication A2:
26.01.2005 Bulletin 2005/04

(21) Application number: 04077723.7

(22) Date of filing: 12.11.1999
(51) International Patent Classification (IPC)7: G10L 13/06
(84) Designated Contracting States:
AT BE CH CY DE DK ES FI FR GB GR IE IT LI LU MC NL PT SE

(30) Priority: 13.11.1998 US 108201 P

(62) Application number of the earlier application in accordance with Art. 76 EPC:
99972346.3 / 1138038

(71) Applicant: Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V.
8900 Ieper (BE)

(72) Inventors:
  • Coorman, Geert
    8500 Kortrijk (BE)
  • De Brock, Mario
    9600 Ronse (BE)
  • Deprez, Filip
    8510 Bellegem-Kortrijk (BE)
  • Fackrell, Justin
    9000 Gent (BE)
  • Leys, Steven
    8500 Kortrijk (BE)
  • Rutten, Peter
    9050 Gent (BE)
  • DeMoortel, Jan
    8510 Rollegem (BE)
  • Schenk, Andre
    8500 Kortrijk (BE)
  • Van Coile, Bert
    8200 Brugge (BE)

(74) Representative: Greene, Simon Kenneth 
Elkington and Fife LLP, Prospect House, 8 Pembroke Road
Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1XR
Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1XR (GB)

   


(54) Speech synthesis using concatenation of speech waveforms


(57) A high quality speech synthesizer in various embodiments concatenates speech waveforms referenced by a large speech database. Speech quality is further improved by speech unit selection and concatenation smoothing.






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