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

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

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Tags: sequences text-to-speech

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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.

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