Cepstral Licensing FAQ

1. Can the Allison Text-to-Speech engine replace all pre-recorded and custom prompts?
   Reading and pronouncing perfectly natural human speech is very difficult, even with advanced speech technology. Many users will be able to detect any synthesized voice. This is especially true when it is used to read names, uncommon words, or unusual word combinations. The best Asterisk applications use a combination of pre-recorded prompts for the most commonly-used phrases, and for proper nouns (such as your company name), and text to speech for phrases that change or are not predictable. With the Cepstral Allison text to speech engine, these can be seamlessly integrated using the same voice.
2. Which versions of Asterisk are supported?
   Asterisk® 1.2.x, 1.4.x, AsteriskNOW™, and Asterisk Business Edition™ versions B.x and C.x.
3. What format does the Allison voice produce?
   The Allison voice has a native audio format of 8kHz, 16bit, PCM, mono. The output can be reformatted at runtime to suit your needs.
4. What are the system requirements?
   A system with i386 Linux is required. Most distributions based on the 2.6 kernel are supported. CPU Requirements: Intel Pentium II, AMD K6. System Memory Requirements: 64MB; Storage Space: 110 MB
5. Where do I get my license key from?
   The license key will be emailed to you after your complete your purchase. The email will also include a link to the installation instructions.
6. How do I use my license key?

   To use your license key, you will need to download the Digium registration utility from http://downloads.digium.com/pub/register to your Asterisk server.

   Give the utility execute permission and run it. Make sure you are logged in as the root user while performing this operation.

   chmod +x register
   ./register
   

   For details, refer to the installation instructions included in your license key email.

7. Does Digium® support the Cepstral™ product?
   Yes, if you purchase it from Digium.
8. What happens if I don't purchase the Starter kit or any port licenses, but just buy the voice-only license?
   Your application will speak, but it will "nag" you to purchase port licenses.
9. What happens if I don't buy enough ports?
   The application will pause while another port (channel) is using the port license, and the user will have to wait until it finishes before the voice will speak. In most applications, occasional small delays are tolerable, but it will be annoying if the delays are long or occur very often. To avoid this problem, simply add more port licenses.
10. I noticed that Allison offers Spanish voice prompts on the Digium website. Does the Allison text-to-speech engine support Spanish as well?
    No, not at this time. Words from languages other than English may not be properly pronounced by the Allison text-to-speech voice. We recommend that you use the professional voice prompt recording services for foreign words and phrases.
11. How do I verify the number of Cepstral licensed ports and/or voices available to Asterisk?

    This can be verified by issuing cepstral show licenses in the Asterisk CLI. For example:

    *CLI> cepstral show licenses
        Cepstral Licensing Information
        ==============================
        Allison Voice Enabled: yes
         Total licensed ports: 14
    

12. How do I use the Cepstral Allison voice with Asterisk?

    In your dialplan, execute

    Set(VOICE=Allison-8kHz)

    Then use the SayText or SayFile diaplan applications to have res_cepstral play back text using Allison's voice.

    Using the SayText diaplan application:

    [Synopsis]
    Say Text using Cepstral Engine
    
    [Description]
    SayText(text[|options])
           Says the text 'text' using the Cepstral TTS engine
    and returns -1 on hangup or 0 otherwise.  If option 'i'
    is specified, the user may interrupt the text with
    a digit, and it will be intepreted as the beginning of
    an extension.  If the option 'n' is specified, the line
    will not be answered if it isn't up.
    

    Using the SayFile diaplan application:

    [Synopsis]
    Speak file using Cepstral Engine
    
    [Description]
    SayFile(file[|options])
           Says the file 'file' using the Cepstral TTS engine
    and returns -1 on hangup or 0 otherwise.  If option 'i'
    is specified, the user may interrupt the file with
    a digit, and it will be intepreted as the beginning of
    an extension.  If the option 'n' is specified, the line
    will not be answered if it isn't up.
    

    Example diaplan code:

    [default]
    exten => 123,1,Set(VOICE=Allison-8kHz)
    exten => 123,n,SayText("Thank you for buying the Allison Cepstral  
    voice")