Globalised Voice Code Prediction:

      Technoviator’s Globalised Voice Code Prediction(GVCP) is a tool used mostly in audio signal processing and speech processing for representing the spectral envelope of a digital signal of speech in compressed form, using the information of a linear predictive model. It is one of the most powerful speech analysis techniques, and one of the most useful methods for encoding good quality speech at a low bit rate and provides extremely accurate estimates of speech parameters.

GVCP analyzes the speech signal by estimating the formants, removing their effects from the speech signal, and estimating the intensity and frequency of the remaining buzz. The process of removing the formants is called inverse filtering, and the remaining signal after the subtraction of the filtered modeled signal is called the residue.

The numbers which describe the intensity and frequency of the buzz, the formants, and the residue signal, can be stored or transmitted somewhere else. GVCP synthesizes the speech signal by reversing the process: use the buzz parameters and the residue to create a source signal, use the formants to create a filter (which represents the tube), and run the source through the filter, resulting in speech.

Because speech signals vary with time, this process is done on short chunks of the speech signal, which are called frames; generally 30 to 50 frames per second give intelligible speech with good compression.

GVCP coefficient representations :

GVCP is frequently used for transmitting spectral envelope information, and as such it has to be tolerant of transmission errors. Transmission of the filter coefficients directly (see for definition of coefficients) is undesirable, since they are very sensitive to errors. In other words, a very small error can distort the whole spectrum, or worse, a small error might make the prediction filter unstable.

There are more advanced representations such as Log Area Ratios(LAR), line spectral pairs (LSP) decomposition and reflection coefficients. Of these, especially LSP decomposition has gained popularity, since it ensures stability of the predictor, and spectral errors are local for small coefficient deviations.

Applications

GVCP is generally used for speech analysis and resynthesis. It is used as a form of voice compression by phone companies, for example in the GSM standard. It is also used for secure wireless, where voice must be digitized, encrypted and sent over a narrow voice channel.

GVCP synthesis can be used to construct vocoders where musical instruments are used as excitation signal to the time-varying filter estimated from a singer's speech. Waveform ROM in digital sample-based music synthesizers LPC predictors are used in Shorten, MPEG-4 ALS, FLAC, and other lossless audio codecs.