Voice activity detection/patch alignment

Hello!

I have some questions regarding the behaviour of the patch detection and alignment.

Firstly I would like to clarify - in Visqol's --verbose output, the patch start and end times - are the times displayed *before* or *after* the global alignment part of Visqol? IE if there is an overall 2 second delay in the degraded patch, which to my understanding gets detected during the global alignment, will the patch time output show post or pre-alignment times?

Secondly - the sample guidelines mentioned in Readme (8-10 seconds long, 0.5 seconds of silence at the beginning and end, not much silence in the middle of sample) - does this apply to Speech mode too, or should the alignment and voice detection of speech mode handle audio with delay, and with a lot of silence in the sample?

An example of a samples that I am currently trying to use with Visqol:
View from audacity:

Visqol Speech mode output
MOS-LQO: 2.52259

| FVNSIM | Freq Band |

| 0.377030 | 50.000Hz |
| 0.476088 | 98.767Hz |
| 0.459481 | 156.063Hz |
| 0.763644 | 223.380Hz |
| 0.835369 | 302.471Hz |
| 0.923244 | 395.394Hz |
| 0.926039 | 504.570Hz |
| 0.903042 | 632.839Hz |
| 0.884796 | 783.543Hz |
| 0.844095 | 960.604Hz |
| 0.841896 | 1168.633Hz |
| 0.866645 | 1413.046Hz |
| 0.860731 | 1700.205Hz |
| 0.856387 | 2037.587Hz |
| 0.825984 | 2433.977Hz |
| 0.823645 | 2899.694Hz |
| 0.745470 | 3446.863Hz |
| 0.706072 | 4089.731Hz |
| 0.700011 | 4845.034Hz |
| 0.635031 | 5732.437Hz |
| 0.547395 | 6775.044Hz |

| Patch Idx | Similarity | Ref Patch: Start - End | Deg Patch: Start - End |

| 0 | 1.000000 | 0.180 - 0.580 | 1.440 - 1.840 |
| 1 | 0.764560 | 2.181 - 2.580 | 2.180 - 2.579 |
| 2 | 0.772817 | 2.580 - 2.980 | 2.580 - 2.980 |
| 3 | 0.843457 | 3.780 - 4.180 | 3.780 - 4.180 |
| 4 | 0.814809 | 4.180 - 4.580 | 4.180 - 4.580 |
| 5 | 0.780449 | 4.580 - 4.980 | 4.580 - 4.980 |
| 6 | 0.699916 | 5.380 - 5.780 | 5.380 - 5.780 |
| 7 | 0.773998 | 5.781 - 6.180 | 5.780 - 6.179 |
| 8 | 0.693399 | 6.181 - 6.580 | 6.180 - 6.579 |
| 9 | 0.529567 | 6.580 - 6.980 | 6.560 - 6.960 |
| 10 | 0.728254 | 8.180 - 8.580 | 8.180 - 8.580 |
| 11 | 0.673384 | 8.580 - 8.980 | 8.580 - 8.980 |
| 12 | 0.707640 | 8.980 - 9.380 | 8.980 - 9.380 |

For reference, Visqol Audio mode output:
MOS-LQO: 3.41303

| FVNSIM | Freq Band |

| 0.533289 | 50.000Hz |
| 0.544615 | 91.748Hz |
| 0.645831 | 139.746Hz |
| 0.804246 | 194.931Hz |
| 0.902527 | 258.379Hz |
| 0.936618 | 331.326Hz |
| 0.961259 | 415.195Hz |
| 0.957324 | 511.621Hz |
| 0.950879 | 622.484Hz |
| 0.941872 | 749.946Hz |
| 0.922163 | 896.492Hz |
| 0.927609 | 1064.979Hz |
| 0.931144 | 1258.694Hz |
| 0.944402 | 1481.411Hz |
| 0.929926 | 1737.475Hz |
| 0.933558 | 2031.877Hz |
| 0.926355 | 2370.358Hz |
| 0.924536 | 2759.518Hz |
| 0.879479 | 3206.945Hz |
| 0.863854 | 3721.361Hz |
| 0.881097 | 4312.798Hz |
| 0.862002 | 4992.786Hz |
| 0.802238 | 5774.585Hz |
| 0.704898 | 6673.438Hz |
| 0.588221 | 7706.870Hz |
| 0.578189 | 8895.030Hz |
| 0.593581 | 10261.087Hz |
| 0.599670 | 11831.674Hz |
| 0.602659 | 13637.414Hz |
| 0.621666 | 15713.517Hz |
| 0.694320 | 18100.460Hz |
| 0.786449 | 20844.785Hz |

| Patch Idx | Similarity | Ref Patch: Start - End | Deg Patch: Start - End |

| 0 | 1.000000 | 0.280 - 0.880 | 1.200 - 1.800 |
| 1 | 1.000000 | 0.880 - 1.480 | 1.220 - 1.820 |
| 2 | 1.000000 | 1.480 - 2.079 | 1.241 - 1.840 |
| 3 | 0.681553 | 2.081 - 2.680 | 2.080 - 2.679 |
| 4 | 0.632587 | 2.680 - 3.280 | 2.680 - 3.280 |
| 5 | 0.891469 | 3.280 - 3.880 | 3.280 - 3.880 |
| 6 | 0.648068 | 3.880 - 4.480 | 3.880 - 4.480 |
| 7 | 0.681742 | 4.480 - 5.080 | 4.480 - 5.080 |
| 8 | 0.599973 | 5.080 - 5.680 | 5.080 - 5.680 |
| 9 | 0.611158 | 5.681 - 6.280 | 5.680 - 6.279 |
| 10 | 0.511901 | 6.280 - 6.880 | 6.280 - 6.880 |
| 11 | 0.938552 | 6.880 - 7.480 | 6.880 - 7.480 |
| 12 | 0.884550 | 7.480 - 8.075 | 7.505 - 8.100 |
| 13 | 0.611468 | 8.080 - 8.678 | 8.082 - 8.680 |
| 14 | 0.567279 | 8.680 - 9.280 | 8.680 - 9.280 |
| 15 | 0.990090 | 9.280 - 9.880 | 10.420 - 11.020 |
| 16 | 1.000000 | 9.880 - 10.480 | 10.440 - 11.040 |
| 17 | 1.000000 | 10.482 - 11.080 | 10.460 - 11.058 |
| 18 | 0.995017 | 11.080 - 11.649 | 10.591 - 11.160 |

The audio sample itself a voice recording.
Essentially, what I am trying to figure out, is - could feeding Visqol Voice samples with delay and a lot of silence be the culprit behind questionable scores we've been getting, or should we look for problems elsewhere.