Patent ID: 7672840

Claim:
A voice speed control apparatus according comprising: an utterance/non-utterance judging unit to judge whether a processing target segment in inputted a voice signal is an utterance segment or a non-utterance segment; a non-utterance continuation length acquiring unit to acquire a non-utterance continuation length representing a length of the voice signal judging continuously to be the non-utterance by said utterance/non-utterance judging unit; a determining unit to determine a reproducing speed of the processing target segment in the voice signal in accordance with the non-utterance continuation length acquired by said non-utterance continuation length acquiring unit so that the reproducing speed gets higher as the non-utterance continuation length gets larger and so that an increase in reproducing speed is restrained to a greater degree as the non-utterance continuation length becomes smaller; a changing unit to change the reproducing speed of the voice signal, corresponding to the reproducing speed determined by said determining unit; a speed decreasing unit to get if judged to be utterance by said utterance/non-utterance judging unit, the reproducing speed of the voice signal slower than a normal reproducing speed; and a delay quantity acquiring unit to acquire cumulatively a delay quantity generated by said speed decreasing unit, wherein said determining unit determines a maximum value of the reproducing speed on the basis of an accumulated value of the delay quantities acquired by said delay quantity acquiring unit so that the maximum value of the reproducing speed gets larger as the accumulated value of the delay quantities gets larger, and determines the reproducing speed in the processing target segment in the voice signals, corresponding to this maximum value and the non-utterance continuation length.