Digital Speech : Coding for Low Bit Rate Communication Systems

Rating:
Summary: Useful as a reference
Review: Not very theoretically robust; many issues are touched on the surface without detail explainations. Some topics are clearly not pragmatic but yet the author make a big deal about them (like his own published method of LSF quantization). Organizations and structures are not my favorite as well. However, the book does provide references to the sources where the readers can refer to for the necessary information.

Rating:
Summary: A perfect assistant for low bit rate speech coding engineers
Review: This book covers subjects lpc parameter quantization, coding standards, algorithms (MPLPC, RELP, VSELP briefly and CELP, LD-CELP and MBE in a very detailed manner). Error Control in speech transmission and system application aspects like DTX and echo cancellors are also reviewed. For the ones working on CELP and MBE based coders, this book does not only supply all the needed theory, but also practical issues even for real time applications on DSP processors.

Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: This is the best modern times book about the subject. However part of this qualification comes from the fact it has practically no competitors. Detailed books on speech coding are very rare. Although it deals with almost every aspect of speech coding, it does so with at times awkward notation, introduction of unexplained equation terms, using of non introduced terminology and at times formulas with obvious errors. I believe a second corrected edition should be necessary. Also in such a hypotetic second edition, I hope many explanations should be made clearer, otherwise for a beginner in the field supplemental references would be needed, and the price of this one is already high.