[sbe-eas] sbe-eas Digest, Vol 226, Issue 5
Media | OpenBroadcaster
media at openbroadcaster.com
Fri Nov 18 19:47:32 EST 2022
In Canada, we have a Common Look and Field Guidance document, for
technical blueprint and design. If an alert is issued with an
attachment, play the audio. If missing or corrupted use the built in TTS
or a "manual method". In open source CAP alert players operating in
production environments there are a couple of enhanced ways to play
alerts. Some LMD\Broadcasters use AWS POLLY neural machine learning
voices in their systems. When present speak out the text from CAP alert
in a more human sounding voice. POLLY is relatively inexpensive around
$4.00 USD per million characters, thousands of hours of spoken alerts.
I see a charge of 1.50 a month for my commercial station. If something
is broken with POLLY then alert player automatically falls back to
onboard TTS to relay broadcast intrusive messages in both official
languages English and French. In some remote communities, we have the
ability to receive and decode CAP alerts to include one of the many
indigenous languages still spoken in the far north.
Rob
>>
* 3.2.1. If the “CAP Resource” method cannot provide suitable Audience
Alert Audio, this TTS method should be used. If TTS is not available
then the manual method referenced in 8.14.6 should be followed.
* 3.2.2. The Audience Alert Message shall be generated using the
defined method. This text content shall be used by the LMD's TTS
engine to generate the Audience Alert Audio.
* 3.2.3. It is recommended that the LMD support a lexicon of place
names, however this is optional.
* 3.2.4. All applicable CLF guidance on Audience Alert Audio, such as
length, shall also be followed when TTS generation is used.
* 3.2.5. LMDs can optionally modify the text content used by the TTS
engine in order to improve the conversion process. This could
include expanding any acronyms, adding additional breaks or pauses,
etc. This modified content should only be used by the TTS engine and
should not be used for visual presentation.
On 2022-11-17 23:36, sbe-eas-request at sbe.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: Question -- are EAS alerts required to contain audio, or
> can they rely on stations' text-to-speech converters? (k7cr at blarg.net)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2022 19:14:26 -0800
> From:"k7cr at blarg.net" <k7cr at avvanta.com>
> To: "'SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the
> Emergency Alert System and other emergency communication issues.'"
> <sbe-eas at sbe.org>
> Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] Question -- are EAS alerts required to contain
> audio, or can they rely on stations' text-to-speech converters?
> Message-ID:<001801d8fafb$dd757f70$98607e50$@avvanta.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Long before I retired as SECC Chair here in Washington, the decision was made to NOT use TTS for the reasons you stated. The policy has been to attach an MP3 audio file.
>
>
>
> Clay Freinwald
>
>
>
> From: sbe-eas<sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org> On Behalf Of Adrienne Abbott
> Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2022 4:38 PM
> To:mlangner at swcp.com; SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the Emergency Alert System and other emergency communication issues.<sbe-eas at sbe.org>
> Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] Question -- are EAS alerts required to contain audio, or can they rely on stations' text-to-speech converters?
>
>
>
> Mike?
>
> We?ve had a similar problem here in Nevada. We?ve seen several EAS tests and activations present with garbled audio, even though our Authorised Alert Originators had uploaded properly formed audio messages. The TTS audio was garbled to the point of being unintelligible, virtually useless and leading to a flood of phone calls and emails from angry, confused viewers to radio and TV stations, state and local emergency officials, including the governor?s office and to yours truly. We know the tests and activations were properly formatted because we had them reviewed by another CAP program vendor. We have not had a satisfactory response from Nevada?s CAP provider.
>
>
>
> The problem is that writing for TTS is a specialised skill. You can?t expect the CAP program to automatically and accurately translate your written text to speech. When a CAP program such as the one used by our state doesn?t accept the audio, it reverts to a TTS version of the script and the result is a steaming pile of ?
>
>
>
> Adrienne
>
> Sent from my mobile iThingie
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 17, 2022, at 3:10 PM, Mike Langner <mlangner at swcp.com <mailto:mlangner at swcp.com> > wrote:
>
> ?
>
> Hello everyone !
>
> May I please ask a question --
>
> Our New Mexico Department of Homeland Security tells me that their IPAWS origination equipment won?t accept a spoken message in the alert.
>
> As a result, alerts go out from time to time with data, alert tone, and dead air.
>
> Are all EAS participants required to have text-to-speech converters? Are IPAWS originating points required to be able to, and to place verbal spoken information in alerts? Or is this an undefined ?gray? area?
>
> Many thanks for your guidance!
>
> Mike/
> _________________________________________
>
>
>
> Mike Langner, Chair
> SECC-NM
> 929 Alameda Road NW
> Albuquerque, NM 87114-1901
>
>
>
>
> (505) 898-3212 home/home office
> (505) 238-8810 cell
> mlangner at swcp.com <mailto:mlangner at swcp.com>
>
>
>
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