[Wikipedia-l] Text to speech (Was: Conference report from SouthAfrica)

Wed Apr 27 15:22:45 UTC 2005

I agree bar the major con of name pronunciation. Even taking your own
surname - Rabagliati; how many computers could pronounce that correctly?
Also, implementing automatic audio conversion would presumably slow down
Wikipedia considerably.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr at wizzy.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Text to speech (Was: Conference report from
SouthAfrica)


> On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Timwi wrote:
>
> > I guess I shouldn't have said this, because now everyone thinks that
> > arguing that accents can be mutually unintelligible, is an argument
> > against natural recordings and for text-to-speech synthesis.
>
> I am glad you brought it up, as I believe it needs to be addressed.
>
> When Atlanta Airport (Georgia) opened, with automated trains taking you
> out to the terminals, there was a requirement for public announcements
> telling you which terminal, stand clear, departing now, etc.
>
> They started out with a pleasant local (Georgian) accent.
>
> Complaints - sounded too provincial, International passengers, etc.
>
> They changed it to a female announcer.
>
> Complaints - people didn't pay enough attention, what was wrong with the
> previous one, etc.
>
> They have ended up with an assertive, metallic, computer voice.
>
> No complaints.
>
> Things pro text to speech :-
>
> * Immediately works with all Wikipedia content.
> * No problems with editing.
> * Uniformity, even if it is uniformly poor ..
>
> I will leave the pro natural speech argument to others - after preparing
> my flame-proof underwear :-) I would also welcome input from people for
> whom English is not a first language.
>
> Cheers,    Andy!
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