Text-to-Speech Template Conversion for Unsupported Characters
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current text-to-speech systems generate unnatural speech when encountering characters that cannot be handled, such as Chinese characters in a TTS engine supporting American English, leading to blank portions and grammatical errors in speech output.
Innovation Solution
The system converts characters that cannot be read aloud into spaces and modifies the template text to remove corresponding modifiers and prepositions, ensuring grammatical correctness and natural speech output by generating a new text that can be processed by the TTS engine.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the TTS engine processes characters that cannot be read aloud (e.g., Chinese characters in an English-supported engine), then the text is converted with blank portions, but the speech output becomes unnatural and contains grammatical errors
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of unsupported characters and converts them to spaces before text generation. It also preemptively modifies the template text to remove or adjust modifiers and prepositions associated with these characters, preventing grammatical errors before they occur in the final speech output
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary processing step between text input and TTS conversion. This intermediary layer detects unsupported characters, converts them to spaces, and adjusts the template structure, acting as a mediator that bridges the gap between diverse character encodings and the TTS engine's language-specific requirements
2Loss of information
If the template text includes all information fields (tune name, artist name, album name), then complete information is provided, but grammatical errors occur when some fields contain unsupported characters
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality modification by selectively adjusting only the portions of the template text associated with unsupported characters. Instead of removing or modifying the entire template, it locally modifies modifiers and prepositions adjacent to problematic fields while preserving the rest of the sentence structure, maintaining both information completeness and grammatical correctness
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter state of template text elements dynamically. When unsupported characters are detected in specific fields, it modifies the presence or form of associated modifiers and prepositions, transforming the template structure based on the actual data quality and TTS engine capabilities
Data Source
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AI summary
An information processing apparatus playing back tunes includes an oral reading unit, a storage unit storing template texts for responses to questions from a user and template text conversion rules, an input unit for inputting a question from a user, and a control unit retrieving tune data and items of tune information associated with the tune data from an apparatus storing tune data. The control unit analyzes a question about a tune from a user to select a template text for a response to the question, detects characters in items of tune information of the tune, the characters replacing replacement symbols included in the template text, to perform conversion of the template text in a manner that depends on whether the characters can be read aloud, generates a text to be read aloud, using the converted template text, and causes the oral reading unit to read the text aloud.