PREDICTING A RESULTANT ATTRIBUTE OF A TEXT FILE BEFORE IT HAS BEEN CONVERTED INTO AN AUDIO FILE

• US 20090112597A1
• Filed: 10/22/2008
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerence Operating Company (Cerence Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Phelan, Eamon, Mackle, Edward G., Tarrant, Declan, Pilson, Keith
• Granted Patent: US 8,145,490 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

An apparatus for predicting a resultant attribute of a text file before it has been converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter application. In accordance with an embodiment, the apparatus includes: a receiver component for receiving a text file and a request to determine a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file, by a text-to-speech converter component; a calculation component for determining a file type associated with the received text file and the size of the received text file; a calculation component for identifying an attribute associated with the determined file type; and a calculation component for determining from the identified attribute and the size of the received text file a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by the text-to-speech converter component.

Claims

1. An apparatus for predicting a resultant attribute of a text file before it has been converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter application, the apparatus comprising:

receiver component for receiving a text file and a request to determine a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter component;

a calculation component for determining a file type associated with the received text file and a size of the received text file;

a calculation component for identifying an attribute associated with the determined file type; and

a calculation component for determining from the identified attribute and the size of the received text file a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by the text-to-speech converter component.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the resultant attribute comprises at least one of a length of playing time of the converted text file and a size of the converted text file.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the length of the playing time is in seconds and the size of the converted text file is in bytes.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the identified attribute is a ratio of, for one byte of data of the received text file, a size of the byte of data once converted to audio.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the identified attribute is a ratio of, for a byte of data identified in the received text file, a playing time, in seconds, of the identified byte of data once converted to audio.

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the calculation component determines if the identified file type has been received on a previous occasion and in response to a negative determination transmitting the received text file to a text-to-speech conversion component for converting into an audio file.

7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 6, wherein the text-to-speech converter component determines a size of the received text file and determines for an identified byte of text data a size of the byte of data once converted into an audio file and a playing time of the byte of data once converted into an audio file.

8. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the identified attribute is stored in a list of other attributes associated with other different determined file types, wherein each of the attributes were determined by the text-to-speech conversion apparatus.

9. A method for predicting a resultant attribute of a text file before it has been converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter application, the method comprising:

receiving a text file and a request to determine a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter component;

determining a file type associated with the received text file and a size of the received text file;

identifying an attribute associated with the determined file type; and

determining from the identified attribute and the size of the received text file a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by the text-to-speech converter component.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the resultant attribute comprises at least one of a length of playing time of the converted text file and a size of the converted text file.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the length of the playing time is in seconds and the size of the converted text file is in bytes.

12. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the identified attribute is a ratio of, for one byte of data of the received text file, a size of the byte of data once converted to audio.

13. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the identified attribute is a ratio of, for a byte of data identified in the received text file, a playing time, in seconds, of the identified byte of data once converted to audio.

14. A method as claimed in claim 9, further comprising:

determining if the identified file type has been received on a previous occasion and in response to a negative determination transmitting the received text file to a text-to-speech conversion component for converting into an audio file.

15. A method as claimed in claim 14, further comprising:

determining the size of the received text file and determining for an identified byte of text data a size of the byte of data once converted into an audio file and a playing time of the byte of data once converted into an audio file.

16. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the identified attribute is stored in a list of other attributes associated with other different determined file types.

17. A computer program product loadable into the internal memory of a digital computer, for predicting a resultant attribute of a text file before it has been converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter application, when the product is run on a computer, the program product comprising code portions for:

receiving a text file and a request to determine a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by a text-to-speech converter component;

determining a file type associated with the received text file and a size of the received text file;

identifying an attribute associated with the determined file type; and

determining from the identified attribute and the size of the received text file a resultant attribute of the text file before it is converted to an audio file by the text-to-speech converter component.