Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Speech signal processing – Application
Reexamination Certificate
1997-02-06
2001-01-30
Voeltz, Emanuel Todd (Department: 2761)
Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language
Speech signal processing
Application
C369S025010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06182043
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a dictation system, comprising a hand held dictation device for storing a speech signal in memory means, the device comprising data compression means for data compressing the speech signal into a data compressed speech signal, storing means for storing the data compressed speech signal in the memory means, to a hand held dictation device, a transcription device and to a removable solid state memory unit for use in the dictation system. A dictation system as defined in the opening paragraph is well known in the art.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Data compression may be realized in prior art dictation systems by discarding the silence periods normally present in the speech signal. Further, one may store an indication signal indicating the length of the silence period and its location in the speech signal. Upon transcription, a replica of the speech signal can be regenerated by inserting silence periods of the same length at the indicated positions in the compressed speech signal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention aims at providing an improved dictation system. The dictation system in accordance with the invention is characterized in that the data compression means are adapted to carry out a data compression step on the speech signal in one of at least two different data compression modes, the at least two different data compression modes resulting in different data compression ratios when applied to the same speech signal, the said at least two different data compression modes being selectable by a user, the data compression mean; being further adapted to create data files comprising portions of the data compressed speech signal, each of the data files comprising a header portion, the data compression means being also adapted to generate an identifier signal identifying the data compression mode selected and being adapted to store said identifier signal in said header portion. The invention is based on the following recognition. The memory capacity of memories included in dictation apparatuses is limited. Preferably, an increased number of dictations should be stored in a memory. This has been realized in the prior art by leaving out the silence periods present in a speech signal. A larger compression ratio can be obtained by applying more powerful compression techniques. More specifically, lossy compression techniques result in large data compression ratios. Larger data reduction ratios, however, may lead to a decrease in quality of the retrieved signal upon data expansion. In accordance with the invention, a dictation system has been proposed in which the user has the possibility to choose one data compression mode from two or more data compression modes in which the hand held dictation device can compress the speech signal. The user can make a trade off between the number of speech messages that he wants to dictate and store in one memory unit and the quality of the speech signal upon reproduction. If the user wants to have more dictations stored in the memory, he will select the data compression mode giving a higher data compression ratio. If the user prefers a higher quality of reproduction, he win choose the data compression mode giving a lower data compression ratio.
The subclaims define preferred embodiments of the dictation system, the hand held dictation device, a transcription device and the removable solid state memory unit.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5086475 (1992-02-01), Kutaragi et al.
patent: 5347478 (1994-09-01), Suzuki et al.
patent: 5812882 (1998-09-01), Raji et al.
patent: 5839100 (1998-11-01), Wegner
patent: 5884269 (1999-03-01), Cellier et al.
Sofocleous M. David
Todd Voeltz Emanuel
Treacy David R.
U.S. Philips Corporation
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