Patent ID: 8620662

Claim:
A machine-implemented method of text-to-speech generation, comprising: at a device comprising one or more processors and memory: receiving a text input to be converted to speech, the text input including a sequence of text input units; and for each text input unit of the sequence of text input units: selecting, from a pool of pre-recorded segments of speech, a respective plurality of candidate speech units for the text input unit, wherein the respective plurality of candidate speech units differ from one another in regard to one or more of a plurality of characteristics; for each of the plurality of characteristics, determining a respective degree of variation present among the respective plurality of candidate speech units selected from the pool of pre-recorded segments of speech; determining a respective weight set for the text input unit, the respective weight set including a respective weight for each of the plurality of characteristics based on relative magnitudes of the respective degrees of variations that are present among the candidate speech units for the plurality of characteristics; and based on the respective weight set for the text input unit, selecting a respective one of the respective plurality of candidate speech units to synthesize a respective speech output corresponding to the text input unit.