Speech synthesis for people with a visual impairment in digital television receivers

Based on the European digital television framework, DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting), this paper reviews different ways to integrate speech synthesis tools in digital television receivers and shows a system capable of extracting textual information from the broadcast multiplex, generating synthesized audio content in a computer and playing it back in the receiver. By selecting the suitable contents within the signalization data, the system adds acoustic information to the so-called text and graphic frames on screen. The purpose of this system is to make the program guide accessible for people with a visual impairment.