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Apple has built extremely good audio book synthesis: https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-

Apple has built extremely good audio book synthesis: https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-aud...

gcanyon 4y ago
I hadn't heard those voices before -- those are extraordinary.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  The female voices for sure, but the male voices have the same problem other voice synthesis AI has: the lower the voice, the more digital and fake the sound likes. The fragment for "Jackson" has a very clear robotic distortion about 10 or 12 seconds in, for example. Madison and Helena are better, though they have weird pacing issues. I couldn't stand to listen to these voices for a long time. With how good 15.ai's female voices are (when they come out with new versions), I must say I expected better.
lern_too_spel 4y ago
This has been available in Google Play Books since 2020 in beta and 2022 for any publisher. For a while now, the store has had a large selection of free auto-narrated books whose copyright has expired. As adequate as it is, publishers still pay for real human narrators for bestsellers. https://9to5google.com/2020/12/03/google-auto-audiobook/ https://9to5google.com/2020/12/03/google-auto-audiobook/ https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/89151-google-play-books-expands-ai-audiobook-narration.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/a... https://support.google.com/books/partner/table/10957334?hl=en https://support.google.com/books/partner/table/10957334?hl=e...
perryizgr8 4y ago
> Once your request is submitted, it takes one to two months to process the book and conduct quality checks. This is not realtime speech to text as we think of it generally.
- Shorel 4y ago
  That's why it's so good =)
- monkeydust 4y ago
  Does anyone know what are they doing here to achieve that level of quality beyond real time state of the art?
  - Tepix 4y ago
    Check out https://nonint.com/static/tortoise_v2_examples.html https://nonint.com/static/tortoise_v2_examples.html it's also non-realtime, provides great quality and it's open source.
    - monkeydust 4y ago
      Thanks. Played around with the collab book, it is incredibly good, put in some text from the FT this morning and got it played back in the voice of Tom Hanks (convincingly)
    - codetrotter 4y ago
      Page stopped loading on my phone because of all of the audio samples loading. Direct link to GitHub: https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    Maybe some sort of SSML to dial pronounciations in, one of the steps is to sign with preferred partner who might have to vet audio book for quality.
password4321 4y ago
Apple Books digital narration https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34256592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34256592

Apple has built extremely good audio book synthesis: https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-aud...

gcanyon 4y ago

I hadn't heard those voices before -- those are extraordinary.

jeroenhd 4y ago
The female voices for sure, but the male voices have the same problem other voice synthesis AI has: the lower the voice, the more digital and fake the sound likes. The fragment for "Jackson" has a very clear robotic distortion about 10 or 12 seconds in, for example. Madison and Helena are better, though they have weird pacing issues. I couldn't stand to listen to these voices for a long time. With how good 15.ai's female voices are (when they come out with new versions), I must say I expected better.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

This has been available in Google Play Books since 2020 in beta and 2022 for any publisher. For a while now, the store has had a large selection of free auto-narrated books whose copyright has expired. As adequate as it is, publishers still pay for real human narrators for bestsellers. https://9to5google.com/2020/12/03/google-auto-audiobook/ https://9to5google.com/2020/12/03/google-auto-audiobook/ https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/89151-google-play-books-expands-ai-audiobook-narration.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/a... https://support.google.com/books/partner/table/10957334?hl=en https://support.google.com/books/partner/table/10957334?hl=e...

perryizgr8 4y ago

> Once your request is submitted, it takes one to two months to process the book and conduct quality checks. This is not realtime speech to text as we think of it generally.

Shorel 4y ago
That's why it's so good =)
monkeydust 4y ago
Does anyone know what are they doing here to achieve that level of quality beyond real time state of the art?
- Tepix 4y ago
  Check out https://nonint.com/static/tortoise_v2_examples.html https://nonint.com/static/tortoise_v2_examples.html it's also non-realtime, provides great quality and it's open source.
  - monkeydust 4y ago
    Thanks. Played around with the collab book, it is incredibly good, put in some text from the FT this morning and got it played back in the voice of Tom Hanks (convincingly)
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    Page stopped loading on my phone because of all of the audio samples loading. Direct link to GitHub: https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Maybe some sort of SSML to dial pronounciations in, one of the steps is to sign with preferred partner who might have to vet audio book for quality.

password4321 4y ago

Apple Books digital narration https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34256592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34256592