I am a law abiding citizen of this great country, Oded...

I have nothing to be sued for by anybody, unlike some other people and
even some large companies...  (I don't include your beloved Compandent
here: with all due respect, it's just insignificant...)

If somebody wants to make some new improved sdMELP (super duper MELP)
Compandent's "IPR" would be the least of all concerns.
The main hurdle would be some basic patents held by some well-known
company located down in the South...
Fortunately, all patents do expire someday, some sooner, some later...

Blah Blah Blah, cost nothing huh?

I guess I'll just wait how the first sucker get sued by them, will it be 
you Dmitry?


fizteh89 wrote:
>> Like I said, in Russia they don't educate people about IPR...
> 
> Right, they did not  - no need for freaking IPR under the Communist
> Party rule.
> 
>> Good luck go ahead and infringe on their IPR willfully...

>Like I said, in Russia they don't educate people about IPR...

Right, they did not  - no need for freaking IPR under the Communist
Party rule.

>Good luck go ahead and infringe on their IPR willfully...

I am afraid it might be the other way around...

BTW, your answer to 10.1 Q is just plain wrong: ask any good IP lawyer
to fill you in.
And in case you can't afford it just ask on misc.int-property: they
will give you free advice...

fizteh89 wrote:
> As we already know (from last discussion here), Compandent doesn't have
> any patents on the MELPe standard.
> And copyright protection does not work in case of a clean-room
> engineering.
> So, what IPR can they possibly have in MELPe to be entitled to any
> royalties ?
> Trade secrets ?  Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha....................

Like I said, in Russia they don't educate people about IPR, then they 
come to the US with their own ignorance and misperception and get in 
troubles...

Good luck go ahead and infringe on their IPR willfully...

I wonder if you will really laugh should you been trying your own 
theory... Ha Ha Ha.....

>From Compandent's web-site (http://www.compandent.com/melpe_faq.htm):
"10.1 Q: Suppose I developed MELPe implementation based on the
standard, or obtained such from some source other than Compandent and I
use it commercially, do I still need to pay any royalty to Compandent?
A: Regardless of where you got your MELPe implemenation from, the
answer is yes!, if your implementation uses our IPR in the MELPe
standard reference. Compandent has made numerous contributions to the
MELPe standard reference. We reserve all our rights in it. We can
provide you a complete list of our contributions. Any party intending
to develop products based on MELPe should contact Compandent (as well
as other IPR holders) regarding licensing terms and conditions."

As we already know (from last discussion here), Compandent doesn't have
any patents on the MELPe standard.
And copyright protection does not work in case of a clean-room
engineering.
So, what IPR can they possibly have in MELPe to be entitled to any
royalties ?
Trade secrets ?  Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha....................

fizteh89 wrote:
> But this also means that their vocoders are not of the highest possible
> quality...

Right, and in order to get that reality you needed to simply stop 
whining and go to their web site and listen to the impressive 
CompPacketer's audio demo:
http://www.Compandent.com/products_compacketer.htm

fizteh89 wrote:
> Brian wrote:
> 
>>its pitch shakes/vibrates which makes it sounds unnatural.
>>
> 
> 
> You bet it does...
> 
> All parametric vocoders like MELP require precise estimation of basic
> parameters of a speech signal - pitch and voicing being the most
> important.
> 
> Any errors in pitch and voicing estimation are detrimental to speech
> qiality.
> Pitch estimation procedure used by MELP is based on correlation - a
> rather crude and problematic way to handle this problem.

Most voice coders do that. However, most developed in the last 15 years 
then apply another stage of fractional tuning of the result.

> The main problem with all those standards is not that the new and more
> accurate techniques aren't available - it is that all those big
> companies want to use their and only their IP in all the standards...
> 
> Look at what happened to a decade-long effort to standardize a 4kbs
> toll-quality ITU speech coding standard: it failed miserably because
> those companies want to have their cake and eat it too...

4.2kbps has been used for toll use in iDEN for years. The codec (unless 
they changed it) is like the half rate GSM one, with the frames 
stretched from 20ms to 30ms. It can give pretty reasonable quality when 
done right.

> But I am sure that toll-quality speech at 4 kbs-per-second  is very
> much possible, they just need to  open standard participation to
> smaller and more innovative companies.
> 
> BTW, you shouldn't pay much attention to Compandent's marketing
> brochures...

Yeah. The Compandent marketing department gets a bit tiresome every time 
someone mentions MELP here.

Regards,
Steve

>On the other hand, Compandent seems to be a very professional company,
> that ... does respect IPR

Good for Compandent...

But this also means that their vocoders are not of the highest possible
quality...

Like I said, can't have your cake and eat it too...

As far as some companies selling "proprietory" vocoders sounding better
tnan the standard (riding chin-deep in patents) ones...
well, it's just funny until it gets sad...

You should not pay attention to an apparently Russian guy who
unsurprisingly recommended a Russian company... and apparently whose 
only concern seems to be  avoiding IPR payment for hard working 
companies that contributed significant inventions to the field...

On the other hand, Compandent seems to be a very professional company,
that unlike the Russian one has contributed to standards... and does
respect IPR, and apparently developed probably the highest quality
low-rate coders, such as ComPacketer (at 2800 bps):
http://www.Compandent.com/products_compacketer.htm

and provided major improvements to the excellent MELPe vocoder that 
already won several standardization competitions (US DoD, NATO) and was 
professionally tested in numerous conditions, as seen from:
http://www.Compandent.com/products_melpe.htm
http://www.Compandent.com/melpe_faq.htm
http://www.melpe.com

> Be sure to ask them to sign a patent indemnification clause before you
> buy anything from them...
> 
> Let us know if they do...

Would you buy a patent indemnification from a Russian company?

I'll see you on the dark side of the moon... :)

Cheers,
USP

>Can anyone recommend a better vocoder at that rate?

To answer your question, try some Spirit products, for example:
http://www.spiritdsp.com/alcwi.html

Be sure to ask them to sign a patent indemnification clause before you
buy anything from them...

Let us know if they do...