Customer Reviews

Speech Coding Algorithms: Foundation and Evolution of Standardized Coders

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading the few introductory chapters, I discovered that this is an easy-to-read book that covers an interesting and evolving area of research. It provides the reader with a "jump- start" to the area of speech coding. Detailed explanations, with a large number of schematics and illustrating diagrams, furnish a vehicle for a fast learning curve.
Nevertheless, the quality of some of these schematics and diagrams need to be revised in future editions. Furthermore, there are some missing notations with some of the curves discussed; such as in Figure 1.14. I would be happy to see the word (Absolute Threshold in dB) on the vertical axis and the (Frequency in Hz) on the horizontal axis instead of AT (f), f.
In spite of these anomalies, I found the book to be deserving of esteem and respect. For me, the most interesting chapters were those covering linear prediction, PCM, algebraic CELP and speech quality assessment.

This books serves as an excellent bridge between speech coding standards and speech coding research publications. It does not seek to cover every existing topic in speech coding, but presents analysis and background of some of the most successful speech coding standards. Many "whys" that come to mind reading those standards are addressed. Carefully compliled illustrations accompany almost every important concept presented. This makes cover-to-cover reading of this book a pleasure.

This is a very good book on speech coding, especially focus on CELP coders. Many kinds of CELP coders are introduced in detail. If you are beginner on speech coding, this book is for you. But other coders, such as MBE and WI, are not presented. So I don't think it is a comprehensive book. I give it 4 stars.

I appreciate very much the amount of figures and simulation results presented in this book; also, the pseudocodes throughout the book helps in the understanding and implementation. In addition, the exercises complement very well with the text. I highly recommend this book to those interested in speech coding.