Text to Speech in ASP.NET

Question

I would like to do some japanese text to speech on my dedicated windows 2003 x64 server with .net framework, using c# I found something on google, but requires to install a lot of files on the server... i don't like, for stability issues: there is another option, like a linked dll or something?

Answer 1

You can use Microsoft Speech SDK. It's a set of COM APIs containing TTS and SR engines. I'm not sure if it contains Japanese TTS though.

Answer 2

Use Microsoft Speech Library and see this article Text to Speech with the Microsoft Speech Library and SDK version 5.1 in CodeProject. Also see Giving Computers a Voice in Coding4Fun

Answer 3

The System.Speech.Synthesis namespace has been part of the framework since .NET 3.0. However, it has internal dependencies on the Speech SDK COM libraries (it chooses the correct version depending on the host OS), so I would recommend prototyping the work before you jump in.

The class you should probably look at first is System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer (whitepaper and example code)

Warning: I have personally experienced issues using the speech APIs in an ASP.NET environment whereby the request that returned the audio data never returned. Despite heavy debugging I was never able to resolve the issue and the feature was dropped. I have had an unresolved support case with Microsoft for 12 months now.

Answer 4

using SAPI in an ASP.NET website, is impossible: the sound will be reproduced on the server :S

It seems that there is the need of Microsoft Speech Server ... Or not? With asp.net is possible to run a commandline exe on the server to save an mp3, then stream that mp3, right? (how to do that? i will try to figure it) I will go this way, i let you know the result :)

edit: this is how i solved: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/963503/how-to-save-text-to-speech-as-a-wav-with-microsoft-sapi/963536#963536

I save the generated voice in a wav file, then i embed it on the page, playing it in a flash player COOL!!

Answer 5

What you most likely want is the Microsoft Speech Server especially if your webite is going to encounter any decent load or volume.

From the site:

"A speech platform, MSS contains all the server components for deploying telephony (voice-only) and multimodal (voice/visual) applications. MSS combines Web technologies, speech-processing services, and telephony capabilities into a single system. "

There is also a dedicated Microsft Speech community which will likely help you get started in this realm. Also, I'm not sure what the latest version is...2004 R2?

This article has a decent diagram outlining the various components. Looks like a good fit for integration with an ASP Web Application.