You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

r_claypool comments on The Sequences in MP3 Format - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: r_claypool 08 July 2011 07:40PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (18)
Tags: sequences text-to-speech

Comments (18)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: r_claypool 11 July 2011 03:29:29AM 3 points [-]

LessWrong might be exempt from these fees, but the exemption is unclear. Specifically, I don't know how to interpret "other consideration of any kind". I am not a lawyer.

From the license holder's website:

5) Do I need a license to distribute mp3 or mp3surround encoded content?

Yes. A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3/mp3PRO in broadcast systems (terrestrial, satellite, cable and/or other distribution channels), streaming applications (via Internet, intranets and/or other networks), other content distribution systems (pay-audio or audio-on-demand applications and the like) or for use of mp3/mp3PRO on physical media (compact discs, digital versatile discs, semiconductor chips, hard drives, memory cards and the like).

However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.

http://mp3licensing.com/help/#4

Comment author: saturn 11 July 2011 05:49:53AM 2 points [-]

I think wedrifid is probably talking about the licensing of the text-to-speech engine he used, rather than mp3, since if mp3 licensing is the problem the files can be easily converted to another format.

Comment author: r_claypool 11 July 2011 07:04:57AM 0 points [-]

Oh. I understand now. I've tried a few text-to-speech engines and AT&T Natural Voices sound the best to my ears. I will find the terms of use and pricing for that.

Comment author: wedrifid 11 July 2011 06:48:28PM 1 point [-]

Please do. If they are sufficiently cheap I will see about getting someone here to allow me to implement an automatic audio version of either just the early Eliezer posts (including sequences) or as a feature of all posts. This would be massively valuable for many of us.

In fact, if price is prohibitive I wonder if it would be worth implementing a free (less natural sounding) text-to-speech converter.

Comment author: r_claypool 01 August 2011 06:07:13AM 1 point [-]

Other questions to resolve:

  • Where should the files be hosted? (Does LW have the bandwidth)
  • Is LW exempt from MP3 licensing? (I hope so)
  • Where should the download links be placed? (A wiki page is fine, but it will be less discoverable.)
  • Which posts should be completed first?
Comment author: wedrifid 01 August 2011 09:19:28AM 0 points [-]

Where should the files be hosted? (Does LW have the bandwidth) Probably, it isn't a huge amount. If not I have half a dozen servers floating around the place. They cost pittance.

Is LW exempt from MP3 licensing? (I hope so)

Probably but I know less than you.

Where should the download links be placed? (A wiki page is fine, but it will be less discoverable.)

A wiki page sounds good for now. If people find it especially useful we can work from there. (I may create an RSS feed or podcast at some stage if I feel inspired.)

Which posts should be completed first?

Whatever you happen to care about.

Comment author: r_claypool 01 August 2011 06:00:02AM *  0 points [-]

I have price quotes for Acapela, Cepstral, Wizzard (AT&T Voices), Neospeech, and Nuance RealSpeak. The range is from $1,000 to $15,000 USD.

Open source options are eSpeak (robotic), Festival (robotic), FreeTTS (robotic), Pico and others.

Pico is part of Android and it sounds more natural than other open source options I tried. Pico is licensed under Apache 2.0. Here's a demo.

The commercial voices are definately better; Loquendo is a good example.

So now I can start converting via Pico or try to get funding for a more natural voice. Thoughts?

Comment author: wedrifid 01 August 2011 09:20:14AM 0 points [-]

So now I can start converting via Pico or try to get funding for a more natural voice. Thoughts?

Start with pico I guess. Then we can possibly upgrade in the future.

Comment author: r_claypool 11 July 2011 06:57:35AM 0 points [-]

Converting is easy, but what's the next best format?

WAV is going to need a lot of bandwidth and storage. Ogg Vorbis works fine on Android, but not for the iPhone.

MP3 will give the best user experience for the most users.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit