Blizzard Challenge 2008

For the Blizzard Challenge 2008, we plan to release two databases: UK English and Mandarin. The results will be presented at a satellite event planned for Interspeech 2008.

Read these first

• Download the Announcement of the Blizzard Challenge 2008 in PDF format.

• Read and agree to the Blizzard Challenge 2008 Rules before participating.

Data download and license agreements

• You must complete license agreements for the data, which can be found here:
  • UK English database: http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/roger_blizzard2008/
  • Mandarin database: the license terms are essentially identical to the UK English database; we hope to have the license form on the web by about 14th February

Data download instructions for each database will be sent out individually to participants after the license agreement(s) have been completed.

Mailing list

There is a mailing list for discussion and announcements for the challenge:

 blizzard-discuss@festvox.org

Participants must join the list by sending a message to majordomo@festvox.org with the following line in the body of the message

 subscribe blizzard-discuss

Once you a member you will be able to mail messages to blizzard-discuss@festvox.org

Timeline

The timeline shown on this web page is the offical one and supercedes those shown in announcements - it is subject to change, but we will try to follow it as closely as possible. Note that we will not consider any requests from participants to change the synthetic speech submission date or the paper submission date!

  Feb 18 2008 Earliest database release date (7 weeks for voice building) 
  Apr  7 2008 Test sentences released (1 week for synthesis) 
  Apr 14 2008 Deadline for submitting synthesized speech 
  Apr 21 2008 Evaluation system goes live (8 weeks for evaluation) 
  Jun 16 2008 End of Evaluation (2 weeks for statistical analysis) 
  Jun 27 2008 Results distributed to teams (4 weeks for writing paper) 
  Jul 25 2008 Satellite workshop papers due (3 week paper review period) 
  Aug 15 2008 Notification of acceptance 
  Sep 22 2008 Presentation of results at the satellite workshop in Brisbane (tentative) 
  Sep 22-26 2008 Interspeech 2008 in Brisbane 

Any questions?

• Please contact blizzard@festvox.org if you have any questions

Previous challenges

• Blizzard Challenge 2007
• Blizzard Challenge 2006 papers and results: http://www.festvox.org/blizzard/blizzard2006.html
• Blizzard Challenge 2005 papers and results: http://www.festvox.org/blizzard/blizzard2005.html