Customer Reviews

Speech Coding: A Computer Laboratory Textbook

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

 

 

This book is written from a practical perspective and this makes it a pleasure to learn about speech coding. Practical exercises provided in the book are can be done with the software provided (2 disks) and this makes learning fun. As a beginer to DSP and espicially to speech processing, I have found most books very technical and difficult to follow without the guidance of a technical person. This book cuts through the technical jargon and gets to the heart of the matter. There are real audio files on which Digital speech processing can be performed, however i found that with my computer, i could not play/hear the sound files. The graphical user interface is straightforward and not difficult to use. I'm glad I bought this book.

It is surprising to see such a large amount of useful and well-presented information in a tiny volume like this. Although intended as a supplemental book emphasizing computer experiments, much theory is included, even if presented in a cursory manner. There are exercises and projects included for hands-on experimentation with the algorithms that are quite helpful. Unfortunately, it is too bad that the software does not work as promised, as this does subtract noticeably from the total learning experience. Note that this book is 12 years old, so you're not getting the latest developments in the field, but it is a good starting point for learning about speech coding. I would say if you can get it at a used book price, it is probably still worth the investment. It makes a good companion to the more modern "Speech Coding Algorithms: Foundation and Evolution of Standardized Coders" by Chu. The following is the table of contents.

DSPLAB: The DSP Laboratory Software.
Quantization: PCM and APCM.

Waveform Coding with Fixed Prediction.

Pitch-excited Linear Predictive Vocoder.

Waveform Coding with Adaptive Prediction.

Analysis-by-Synthesis LPC.

Subband Coding.

Projects.

Appendices.

Bibliography.

Index.

I gave this book only three stars. However, if the software had worked correctly, I would have probably given it four or five stars.

Another reviewer has commented on difficulty playing the sound files. I experienced the same problem. I found a work around using some third party software, but I expected better from Georgia Tech.

I expected trouble free software. I didn't get it. Your milage may vary.

This is an excellent introduction to speech coding, but like the other reviewers, I failed to get the software to play out speech files (using soundblaster boards of various vintages - it always failed).

The text is very good and I would like to employ this in my teaching, but inability to hear the results is very frustrating.