Digital coding of speech waveforms: PCM, DPCM, and DM quantizers

A study is presented on the digital coding of speech by means of a straightforward approximation of the time waveform. In particular, the closely related discrete-time discrete-amplitude signal representations that are rather well known as pulse-code modulation (PCM), differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM), and delta modulation (DM) are discussed. Speech is recognized as a nonstationary signal, and emphasis is therefore placed on "companding" and "adaptive" strategies for waveform quantization and prediction. With signal-to-quantization-error ratio SNR as a performance measure, techniques are suggested which are most likely to be appropriate for given specifications of information rate. It is pointed out that error waveforms in speech quantization cannot be regarded as additive white noise, in general. This means that for finer assessments of speech coders, either relative or absolute, one needs to supplement SNR-based observations with corrections for subjective and perceptual factors. The latter seem to defy quantification as a rule. Invaluable, therefore, are explicit preference tests for direct comparisons of coders from a perceptual standpoint, and notions such as isopreference and multidimensional scaling are naturally appropriate in interpreting the results of such tests. Final points of concern are communication questions such as multiple encodings of speech by tandem coder-decoder pairs; conversions among different digital code formats; and the effects of additive and multiplicative noise in the communication channel, as manifest in the erroneous reception of speech-carrying bits. Information on these topics tends to be heterogeneous and nontheoretical, and the present digression into the subject is cursory by intent. The gramophone record accompanying this paper demonstrates some of the manipulations of speech that are discussed.