Good afternoon,  

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

If it's reading back your "say-as" and you have it formatted as is, it sounds like it's interpreting this as a literal string rather than ssml+xml.

I would look at a few things with the actual tool step that is playing back string:

1. Is it Play String or Play String Extended (it should be extended)
2. Are there further tags wrapping your <say-as> section?
3. Do you have optional parameters set on your Play String Extended tool step to define the content type?

I just made a quick test in my dev system (2018 R2 P9, Vocalizer 6 with NSS 6.2.6):

For my Play String Extended step, I added the following parameters and had success:

Text:  "<?xml version='1.0'?><speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis' xml:lang='en-US'>" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>" & "</speak>"


I've concatenated some of the literal parts of this to emphasize what I added to your initial example.



------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 09:10
From: Phil Chapman
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

​Yes, I'm it is using  play string extended.    I tried adding the optional parameter you suggested but afterwards nothing plays at all.

We had the language in the optional parameter but I added yours so it looks like the following:
"MRCP mrcp.audio.language:en-us" & "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

The sStringtoPlay value that was trying to be played was this:
 <say-as interpret-as='characters'>insurance company name, inc</say-as> period<say-as interpret-as='characters'></say-as>



------------------------------
Josh Herron
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 13:09
From: Aaron Lael
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

If it's reading back your "say-as" and you have it formatted as is, it sounds like it's interpreting this as a literal string rather than ssml+xml.

I would look at a few things with the actual tool step that is playing back string:

1. Is it Play String or Play String Extended (it should be extended)
2. Are there further tags wrapping your <say-as> section?
3. Do you have optional parameters set on your Play String Extended tool step to define the content type?

I just made a quick test in my dev system (2018 R2 P9, Vocalizer 6 with NSS 6.2.6):

For my Play String Extended step, I added the following parameters and had success:

Text:  "<?xml version='1.0'?><speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis' xml:lang='en-US'>" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>" & "</speak>"


I've concatenated some of the literal parts of this to emphasize what I added to your initial example.

Optional Parameters:  "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

 

Then I just used a get key to flush audio and it worked without issue.

My emphasis here is to take a look at the step playing the string, it should have more to do with what you're hearing (or not hearing).

------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 09:10
From: Phil Chapman
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

It appears that you're only taking into account half of the information in my post.  The optional parameters define the content type, but the additional tags that I have provided for your "Text" make it a valid object of that type.

------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2018 07:26
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

​Yes, I'm it is using  play string extended.    I tried adding the optional parameter you suggested but afterwards nothing plays at all.

We had the language in the optional parameter but I added yours so it looks like the following:
"MRCP mrcp.audio.language:en-us" & "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

The sStringtoPlay value that was trying to be played was this:
 <say-as interpret-as='characters'>insurance company name, inc</say-as> period<say-as interpret-as='characters'></say-as>



------------------------------
Josh Herron

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 13:09
From: Aaron Lael
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

If it's reading back your "say-as" and you have it formatted as is, it sounds like it's interpreting this as a literal string rather than ssml+xml.

I would look at a few things with the actual tool step that is playing back string:

1. Is it Play String or Play String Extended (it should be extended)
2. Are there further tags wrapping your <say-as> section?
3. Do you have optional parameters set on your Play String Extended tool step to define the content type?

I just made a quick test in my dev system (2018 R2 P9, Vocalizer 6 with NSS 6.2.6):

For my Play String Extended step, I added the following parameters and had success:

Text:  "<?xml version='1.0'?><speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis' xml:lang='en-US'>" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>" & "</speak>"


I've concatenated some of the literal parts of this to emphasize what I added to your initial example.

Optional Parameters:  "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

 

Then I just used a get key to flush audio and it worked without issue.

My emphasis here is to take a look at the step playing the string, it should have more to do with what you're hearing (or not hearing).

------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 09:10
From: Phil Chapman
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

​Yep, that was the issue.  Thank you!

------------------------------
Josh Herron
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2018 12:28
From: Aaron Lael
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

It appears that you're only taking into account half of the information in my post.  The optional parameters define the content type, but the additional tags that I have provided for your "Text" make it a valid object of that type.

------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2018 07:26
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

​Yes, I'm it is using  play string extended.    I tried adding the optional parameter you suggested but afterwards nothing plays at all.

We had the language in the optional parameter but I added yours so it looks like the following:
"MRCP mrcp.audio.language:en-us" & "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

The sStringtoPlay value that was trying to be played was this:
 <say-as interpret-as='characters'>insurance company name, inc</say-as> period<say-as interpret-as='characters'></say-as>



------------------------------
Josh Herron

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 13:09
From: Aaron Lael
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

If it's reading back your "say-as" and you have it formatted as is, it sounds like it's interpreting this as a literal string rather than ssml+xml.

I would look at a few things with the actual tool step that is playing back string:

1. Is it Play String or Play String Extended (it should be extended)
2. Are there further tags wrapping your <say-as> section?
3. Do you have optional parameters set on your Play String Extended tool step to define the content type?

I just made a quick test in my dev system (2018 R2 P9, Vocalizer 6 with NSS 6.2.6):

For my Play String Extended step, I added the following parameters and had success:

Text:  "<?xml version='1.0'?><speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis' xml:lang='en-US'>" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>" & "</speak>"


I've concatenated some of the literal parts of this to emphasize what I added to your initial example.

Optional Parameters:  "mrcp.audio.contentType:application/ssml+xml"

 

Then I just used a get key to flush audio and it worked without issue.

My emphasis here is to take a look at the step playing the string, it should have more to do with what you're hearing (or not hearing).

------------------------------
Aaron Lael
State of Utah

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 09:10
From: Phil Chapman
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------

​We are using Vocalizer 5.7.

------------------------------
Josh Herron
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2018 09:10
From: Phil Chapman
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Josh,

Which version of Vocalizer are you using? There are some slight differences between the versions and the way that they treat the say-as command.

Phil

------------------------------
Phil Chapman
Sr. Solution Engineer
Altivon

Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2018 16:12
From: Josh Herron
Subject: Nuance Vocalizer speaking "say-as" since upgrade

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded from CIC 4.0 to  CIC 18.2.13.   We have a handler that does some string cleaning of text to speech playback because we have some strings that contain characters that need to be read as characters when they appear in the string.   For example below I would want Nuance to read back "test period string"

sStringToPlay: test.string Mode: String

We run all of the sStringToPlay values through another handler that looks for strings containing periods and if the character is found assigns the sStringToPlay value as follows:

"<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrLeft(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos)) & "</say-as>" & " period" & "<say-as interpret-as='characters'>" & StrLower(StrMid(sStringToPlay, iPeriodPos + 1, 50)) & "</say-as>"

This has worked flawlessly for the last few years, but since the upgrade to 18.2.13 Nuance has been reading back the  "say-as" during the text to speech playback.  I didn't create this handler originally so I'm trying to figure out why it used to work and now doesn't perform as we expect.  Any ideas?

#Handlers

------------------------------
Josh Herron

------------------------------