====================================== Infovox 230 Frequently Asked Questions ====================================== Last Update: 9-Sep-97 The information presented in this paper is meant to provide a quick answer to the most frequent questions about the Infovox 230 Text-to- Speech Engine. To improve the readability of this FAQ, we suggest to display it or print it using a fixed-width font (like Courier for example). General information =================== Q: How can I get the latest information on the Infovox products? The latest information on the Infovox products is available on the Internet, at the following address: http://www.infovox.se From our World Wide Web pages you will also have the opportunity to get a trial version of our software, the complete User's Guide and the newest version of this FAQ. Q: What is the Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine? The Infovox 230 is a native 32-bit multilingual Text-to-Speech Engine based on the Microsoft Speech Technology. It works with any personal computer that is provided with a 16-bit sound card supported by Windows 95 (a Sound Blaster, for example). Technically speaking, the Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine is a COM object which fully adheres to the Microsoft Speech API standard. This implies that the Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine is completely integrated in your system, and that it will follow smoothly the evolution that the Windows 95 operating system may have in the future. Q: What are the requirements for the Infovox 230? The Infovox 230 requirements are the same of Windows 95, that is, the personal computer should have a 486 DX 33 MHz processor (or higher) and minimum 8 MB of memory. You also need to have 2 MB of free disk space for a complete installation of the Infovox 230. In addition to this you need a 16-bit Soundblaster compatible digital audio board. Q: Does the Infovox 230 work under Windows NT? No! release 1.0 of Infovox 230 will not work under Windows NT! Windows NT will be fully supported from release 1.1 of the product. Q: How can I test the quality of the Infovox 230? A trial version of our products is available at our web site: http://www.promotor.telia.se/infovox/index.htm If you do not have access to the web you can contact us in any of the following ways: - By e-mail: tts-sales@promotor.telia.se - By fax:+46 8 735 78 76 - By phone: +46 8 764 35 - By letter: Telia Promotor AB Att: Sales and Marketing Text-to-Speech Sales and Marketing Text-to-Speech P.O Box 2069 S-171 02 SOLNA Sweden Q: Which languages are available for the Infovox 230? One great advantage of the Infovox 230 is the wide variety of languages available. These are currently: American English, British English, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Any additional language released in the future can be used immediately with the Infovox 230. Installation ============ Q: During installation a get a message saying "Unable to create a directory under c:\windows\system\. Please check write access to this directory." To install the Speech API support we need to create a directory called "Speech" under the Windows directory (and not under Windows\System, as erroneously reported by the message). It happens sometimes that there is already a file in the Windows directory that has the same name ("speech.", without any extension), and this creates a conflict. Try to rename the "Speech." file or move it to another directory. Q: I have Infovox 220 already installed on my PC and I would like to install Infovox 230, while keeping Infovox 220 up and running! It is generally the case that you want to have only one of these two text-to-speech converters on your machine at one time. If you have bought the Infovox 230 it is generally better you uninstall the Infovox 220 and run only the Infovox 230. Anyway it is technically possible to run both programs at the same time, but the installation procedure is quite complicated. This is due to the fact that both programs required a language license to be installed at least once, but it is forbidden to have two licenses for the same language installed on the machine at the same time, even though the license it is installed in different ways (through the Language Installation program for the Infovox 220, and through the License Manager for the Infovox 230). The procedure here described assumes that you already have the Infovox 220 and one Infovox 220 language already installed on your PC. 1. Uninstall the Infovox 220 language following the normal procedure (see User's Guide). 2. Install the Infovox 230 plus the Infovox 230 language following the normal procedure (see User's Guide). 3. Run the License Manager and enable the license for the Infovox 230 language following the normal procedure (see User's Guide). 4. Run the License Manager again and DISABLE the license for the Infovox 230 language (see User's Guide). Note: If you jump over step 3 and 4 you will see a "Language not registered" message in the License Manager windows, and the language license will not be accessible from the Infovox 230. 5. Install the Infovox 220 language following the normal procedure (see User's Guide). Now the language license will be accessible from both Infovox 220 and Infovox 230 and you can run both programs on your PC. License management ================== Q: What are the Northern Demo, Southern Demo and Developer Kit licenses? These three special licenses are referred as demonstration licenses. They are generic language licenses which allow the user to use a certain set of languages during a limited period of time. Note that during this period the user will be allowed to use all the features of the Infovox 230 without any restriction. Please refer to the "License Manager" chapter on the User's Guide for more information on what is a Language License. Refer to the "How do I enable a demonstration license?" topic in this FAQ to learn how to install a demonstration license. Q: How do I enable a demonstration license? The three demonstration licenses (Northern Demo, Southern Demo and Developer Kit) allow the user to use certain languages during a limited period of time. To enable one of these licenses you need to follow this procedure: 1. If you have not done it yet, install the disk containing the demonstration licenses. Refer to the procedure described in the "Installing the language files" section on the User's Guide for a full description of this procedure. 2. Start the License Manager application. 3. Insert the installation disk containing the demonstration license in your floppy disk drive. 4. In the License Status window, click on the name of the demonstration license you want to enable (for instance "Southern Demo"). The corresponding line in the License Status window will be highlighted. Note: You cannot enable a license for only one of the languages provided with the demonstration license, even though all those languages will be displayed in the License Status as separate entries. 5. Click on the Enable button. 6. All the languages provided with the demonstration license will now be registered as "Enabled as demo" and you will be allowed to use them until the temporary license will expire. Q: Will a demonstration license overwrite my full licenses? No, the demonstration license will not overwrite an existing license. For instance, if you have a licensed Spanish language and you enable the Southern Demo demonstration license, the Spanish language will not then be counted among the file "enabled as demo", but it will retain its full license, which will not expire when the demonstration license expires. Please refer to the "License Manager" chapter on the User's Guide for more information on how to use the License manager. Q: When I try to enable a license I get a message saying "Could not enable the language! Please make sure that the source unit is ready and it is not write protected". You should first check the Infovox language disk is inserted in drive A: and it is not write-protected. If this is not the case you should then check if you have already used all the licenses available on the disk (2 in most cases, unless you have a made a special order). To be sure on how many licenses are left on the disk, please refer to the appropriate question here below. If you have checked all of the above and you still get the same problem, then there might be an incompatibility between our Software Keys Licensing System and your Hard Disk. This kind of problem is sometimes encountered with few types of portable PC, among which the IBM ThinkPad. Contact us in this case for alternative solutions. Q: How can I know if there are licenses left on my Infovox language disk? If you want to know how many licenses are left on your Infovox language disk, you first have to download the VFLANGS utility from our WEB site. After you have downloaded the utility follow the instructions contained in the README.TXT file that comes with the utility. Q: I have problem running the license manager, is there an alternative way to know if there are licenses installed on my Hard Disk? If you want to know how many installations are left on your Infovox language disk, you first have to download the VFLANGS utility from our WEB site. After you have downloaded the utility follow the instructions contained in the README.TXT file that comes with the utility. Using the Infovox 230 ===================== Q: The Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine initialization fails! If you get a message saying "Speech engine initialization failed" when you try to open an application that connects to the Infovox 230 Text-to- Speech Engine, you should check the following: - Is a 16-bit audio card installed and configured on your computer? You can check whether the sound card is installed and configured by playing any sound file on your computer. - Have the language files been installed? In order for the Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine to run properly, at least one language has to be installed on your computer. Please refer to the "Installing the language files" section on the User's Guide for more information on how to install the language files. You can also check whether any language file has been installed on your computer by running the License Manager. If in the License Status window you can only see the three demonstration modes (Southern Demo, Northern Demo, and Developer Kit), then no language has been installed. Please refer to the "License Manager" chapter on the User's Guide for more information on how to use the License Manager. Q: The Infovox 230 speaks a sentence that is not in my text! When a language has been installed, but its corresponding license has not been enabled, then the Infovox 230 inserts a demonstrative sentence randomly in the text being spoken. If you have bought the language, or you have received one of the demonstrative licenses (namely "Southern Demo", "Northern Demo", or "Developer's Kit"), you should then enable the languages in order not to have the demonstrative sentence spoken. Please refer to the "License Manager" chapter on the User's Guide for more information on how to enable a language license through the License Manager. If you have got the Infovox 230 through other means (for instance through downloading of a demo software from Telia Promotor's WWW site), then you have to buy a language license or obtain a demonstrative license in order to get rid of the demonstrative sentence. Q: How can I control the default mode when I start an application that uses the Infovox 230. As a brief introduction to the problem, it has to be said that the decision on which language has to be taken at startup is done by the application that uses the Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine, and not by the Infovox 230 itself. In case you use a third party application together with the Infovox 230, than you will have to contact the manifacturer of the application that uses the Infovox 230 engine. If you use the Speech Demo Application or the Clipboard Application that we provide together with the Infovox 230, then you should consider that those applications startup using the mode used the last time the application was closed. For example, let's say that start the Clipboard and the mode chosen at startup is "British English Male", then you open the Infovox 230 Engine Properties dialog box and choose "Swedish Male", use the clipboard and then close it. Next time you start the Clipboard, it will load the "Swedish Male" mode automatically. The same thing holds for the Speech Demo Application. Note, however, that the settings for the Speech Demo Application and the settings for the Speech Clipboard are separate, this means that if you change the mode in the Speech Demo Application, that would not influence the mode loaded at startup by the Speech Clipboard. Developer's corner ================== Q: How can I include the Infovox 230 in my application The Infovox 230 Text-to-Speech Engine is a COM object that follows the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) standard. The complete documentation of the Speech API is distributed freely by Microsoft together with the Speech SDK. In order to get the latest version of the Speech SDK follow this procedure: 1. Go to this address: http://research.microsoft.com/ 2. Follow the link (MSR group) called "speech technology" 3. Follow the link called "Downloads" 4. Download the latest Speech SDK. Q: Can I get a WAVE file from Infovox 230. Yes. Please refer to the Speech API documentation to get information on how to output speech directly into a standard WAVE file. Q: Can Infovox 230 connects directly to a Modem? In the SAPI specifications there is a distinction between the Text-to-Speech Engine and the Multimedia Audio Device object, and it is the Multimedia object that takes care of connecting to a specific device such as a modem/phone card. If you have access to a Multimedia Audio Device that can connect directly to your modem, then this is possible, otherwise contact your Modem reseller and ask for the avaibility of this component. Q: Can Infovox 230 output directly in ADPCM format? No, currently the Infovox 230 outputs data only in the PCM format. It is anyway often the case that the translation from PCM to ADPCM is done in the Multimedia Audio Object or it is provided by the modem/phone card driver.