2. SPEECH SYNTHESIS --AusTalk Zhijie Shao Master of Computer Science Supervisor: Trent Lewis

3. Application http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stephen_Hawking.StarChild.jpg http://www.popsci.com.au/technology/article/2009-12/secrets-behind- brain-implanted-speech-sythesizer-revealed-new-paper

4. Voice Import ToolBlizzard DataAusTalkModificationEvaluation and Conclusion Project Procedure

5. MARY (Modular Architecture for Research on speech sYnthesis) is the German text-to-speech system. MARY

6. Voice Import Tools being provided by MARY contains a set of Voice components and helps users to build new voices under the MARY Environment. MARY— Voice Import Tool

7. Unit Selection Synthesis

8. HMM- Based Synthesis

9. HMM- based Synthesis HMM: Hidden Markov model An introduction to HMM-based speech Synthesis by Junichi Yamagishi

10. Blizzard Data The speaker is known as ‘Nancy’ and is a native speaker of US English, professional female voice talent, voice coach, and singer. 16.6 hours of data was made available Unit Selection Voice: HMM-based Voice: Unit Selection Voice: Hi, I am Jacky, welcome to my presentation. Hi, Jacky again, welcome to my presentation.

11. AusTalk Data “7. Sentences (8mns) A set of 59 sentences is presented one at a time on the screen.” from BigASC-RA-Manual

12. Comparison Blizzard 59 VS AusTalk 59 Synthesis Blizzard Unit Selection: Blizzard HMM: AusTalk HMM: AusTalk Unit Selection:

13. Comparison Continue Blizzard Unit Selection: Blizzard HMM: AusTalk HMM: AusTalk Unit Selection: Welcome to the speech synthesis

14. Austalk vs Blizzard (1) Phoneme Alignment (2) Quality of wav files (3) Boundary of utterance Comparison

15. Evaluation and Conclusion Modification and Evaluation Create a quality Aussie voice Further Research