Choppy speech with speech-dispatcher and pulseaudio

[Lorenzo Taylor]

 affects ubuntu/pulseaudio
 affects ubuntu/speech-dispatcher
I just updated to the latest Ubuntu Jaunty updates. Pulseaudio has been
updated to 0.9.14-0ubuntu10 and speech-dispatcher updated to
0.6.7-0ubuntu4. As of the upgrade to these versions, speech-dispatcher
using the eSpeak module is producing choppy speech. In other words, on a
long line of text, either speech-dispatcher or pulseaudio splits the
speech into small parts, roughly 1 second long, pausing about half a
second between segments. This chop usually occurs in the middle of a
word, and usually in the middle of a syllable. Punctuations such as
commas or periods which naturally pause seem to reset this segmentation,
so that if a punctuation pause comes before the 1-second segment ends,
the pause caused by the punctuation is not lengthened abnormally, and
the next part of the sentence is segmented from that point. The second
of speech appears to restart.

Earlier versions of pulseaudio and speech-dispatcher caused this
problem, but recently the problem was corrected. I didn't experience the
problem with pulseaudio 0.9.14-0ubuntu8 or 0.9.14-0ubuntu9. I also
didn't experience the problem with speech-dispatcher 0.6.7-0ubuntu3.
Also, only speech-dispatcher appears to be affected, since other sounds
play normally at this point. I am using speech-dispatcher's eSpeak
module configured to output via pulseaudio rather than the default alsa.
Switching speech-dispatcher to use alsa is producing nothing but pops
and squeaks, probably because I have alsa configured to use pulseaudio
by default.

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

Lorenzo, this is to do with some testing/bug fixing that is going on with pulseaudio, and its glitch free mode, which I think is currently turned on. You might consider turning it off, and seeing if that makes a difference. To do this, open /etc/pulse/default.pa, and find the line "load-module module-hal-detect". At the end of this line, add "tsched=0" if its not already there. Note the quotes should not be included.

We intend to have pulseaudio choppiness issues sorted ASAP, so please bare with us.

 affects ubuntu/speech-dispatcher
 status invalid

[Lorenzo Taylor (lorenzo.taylor)]

According to Luke Yelavich:
> "load-module module-hal-detect". At the end of this line, add "tsched=0"
> if its not already there. Note the quotes should not be included.

Problem solved. Thanks for the fix.