This program will copy one or more data files to a designated output file, optionally converting the data into a parameterised form. While the source files can be in any supported format, the output format is always HTK . By default, the whole of the source file is copied to the target but options exist to only copy a specified segment. Hence, this program is used to convert data files in other formats to the HTK format, to concatenate or segment data files, and to parameterise the result. If any option is set which leads to the extraction of a segment of the source file rather than all of it, then segments will be extracted from all source files and concatenated to the target.
Labels will be copied/concatenated if any of the options indicating labels are specified (-i -l -x -G -I -L -P -X). In this case, each source data file must have an associated label file, and a target label file is created. The name of the target label file is the root name of the target data file with the extension .lab, unless the -X option is used. This new label file will contain the appropriately copied/truncated/concatenated labels to correspond with the target data file; all start and end boundaries are recalculated if necessary.
When used in conjunction with HSLAB, HCOPY provides a facility for tasks
such as cropping silence surrounding recorded utterances. Since input
files may be coerced, HCOPY can also be used to convert the parameter
kind of a file, for example from WAVEFORM to MFCC, depending on the
configuration options
.
Not all possible
conversions can actually be performed; see Table 13.1 for a
list of valid conversions. Conversions must be specified via a
configuration file as described in chapter 5.