News

Project Updates

06/07/2011- MTVR beta version 1.0.0.46 has been released and is available from the website. It fixes a problem with saving recordings for users with dots in their username and fixes a missing library dependency on older x64 machines.

03/25/2011 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.44 has been released and is available from the website. Several important bug fixes and improvements have been made to the automatic calibration procedure.

02/15/2011 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.43 has been released and is available from the website. A critical bug that caused a program crash under specific circumstances was discovered and corrected.

02/14/2011 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.42 has been released and is available from the website. An important file missing from the previous installer has been restored and new versions uploaded.

02/10/2011 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.41 has been released and is available from the website. With this release, we have concentrated on improvements to the calibration process, making it both easier and more accurate. Calibration is now completed in three steps, each of which should be faster and easier to complete than before. A full list of changes is included here.

If you are already in the process of recording a full inventory, we do not recommend upgrading. However, if you have not yet begun recording, you should upgrade to this version of MTVR and start a new inventory. Please make sure you completely uninstall any older versions of MTVR and/or ModelTalker first before installing 1.0.0.41.

10/14/2010 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.39 has been released and is available from the website.

09/05/2010 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.38 has been released and is available from the website.

08/26/2010 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.37 has been released and is available from the website. If you are using an earlier version and have not yet begun recording the full inventory, we strongly recommend that you download this version and create a new inventory (you will need to redo the screening sentences).

If you are already in the midst of recording your full inventory with the previous version of MTVR and it has been working well for you, it is best for you to finish your recording without upgrading to this new version of MTVR. If you have any questions or concerns about whether to upgrade or not, please contact us at beta@modeltalker.com.

02/18/2010 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.36 has been released and is available from the website. The installer is now completely compatible with Windows 7 (32-bit version only).

01/05/2010 - The current versions of MTVR and ModelTalker are fully compatible with Windows 7; however, the current installer is not Windows 7 aware. A new installer and updated versions of MTVR and ModelTalker will soon be released to fix this problem.

08/14/2009 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.33 has been released and is available from the website.

02/16/2009 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.32 has been released and is available from the website.

11/14/2008 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.30 has been released and is available from the website.

10/07/2008 - MTVR beta version 1.0.0.29 has been released and is available from the website.

08/15/2008 - InvTool has now been replaced by the ModelTalker Voice Recording Tool (MTVR). We believe this newly designed recording tool will be easier and faster to use and should be compatible with Windows Vista. It is still (early) beta software so the normal cautions apply. We will still support uploaded speech from previously downloaded versions of InvTool through the end of October 2008. After that time, please contact us directly if you still need to finish the recording process with the older InvTool.

02/08/2008 - Notification of fully funded second year of Phase II Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the NIH National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH Grant Number R42 DC006193-04).

03/30/2007 - All new beta users of InvTool will be required to record a short 14 phrase inventory (included) and upload it before recording a full inventory. This is to insure that everything is working properly and the inventory is being correctly recorded. Once the screening inventory is checked and verified by our staff, we will send users the full inventory for recording.

01/01/2007 - Development of the ModelTalker and InvTool programs is now being supported by a Phase II Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the NIH National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH Grant Number R42 DC006193-03). This grant will help us finish commercializing this technology from the Speech Research Laboratory of the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children and Nemours Biomedical Research.

Related Publications and Presentations

2010

Bunnell, H.T. (2010). Crafting Small Databases for Unit Selection TTS: Effects on Intelligibility. Proceedings of the 7th ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop.

Bunnell, H.T., Lilley, J., Pennington, C., Moyers, B., Polikoff, J. (2010). The ModelTalker System. Proceedings of The 2010 Blizzard Challenge Workshop.

Bunnell, H.T. and Pennington, C.A. (2010). Advances in Computer Speech Synthesis and Implications for Assistive Technology. In Computer Synthesized Speech Technologies: Tools for Aiding Impairment, J. Mullennix and S. Stern, (Eds.) Hershey, PA: IGI Global Publishing.

2008

Bunnell, H. T., & Lilley, J. (2008). Schwa Variants in American English. Paper presented at InterSpeech 2008, Brisbane, Australia.

Yarrington, D., Pennington, C., Bunnell, T., Gray, J., Lilley, J., Nagao, K., & Polikoff, J. B. (2008). ModelTalker Voice Recorder (MTVR) - A System for Capturing Individual Voices for Synthetic Speech. Paper presented at the ISAAC 13th Biennial Conference, Montreal, Canada.

Yarrington, D., Gray, J., Pennington, C., Bunnell, H. T., Cornaglia, A., Lilley, J., Nagao, K., & Polikoff, J. B. (2008). ModelTalker Voice Recorder – An Interface System for Recorded a Corpus of Speech for Synthesis. Paper presented at the 46th Annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (ACL-08:HLT), Columbus, OH.

2007

Bunnell, H.T., & Lilley, J. (2007). Analysis Methods for Assessing TTS Intelligibility. Paper presented at the 6th ISCA Workshop on Speech Synthesis, Bonn, Germany.

Pennington, C. (2007). ModelTalker: Automatically Creating Personal Synthetic Voices. Presentation given at Messiah College Senior Computer Science Seminar, Grantham, PA.