Hello Subha,

Nice to hear from your side :)

- Is there a sample that we can check out? (I looked up for Text2Video and found this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHX8FSJWzrU> but I think I'd rather not have any animation to save data if I was visually impaired because I fail to see the purpose of the animation in the first place)
=>  Yes!! You already saw the working app in youtube link. for more details please check this. https://fxoshack.wordpress.com/2019/03/11/create-text-animation-video-from-wikipedia-article-text2video/

- How many Indian languages have a working TTS as that would be the basis for a tool like this? (Open Source tools like NVDA <https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/userGuide.html?> which uses machine synthesis which is by far the only available TTS for several Indian languages)

- Which language Wikipedias have been tested on so far?

- I am yet to be convinced that VideoWiki is useful in any manner, particularly from a digital accessibility standpoint (in simple words, why one would use VideoWiki or what is the target audience for VideoWiki). It's fun to play with a platform like this but I'm still waiting to see the practical use (and I did have fun hearing to Wikipedia articles using VideoWiki)

- For something to work for Indian languages, the TTS itself should be decent enough and the application should not be data-heavy (thanks to carriers like Jio and in general drop in data charges, but we still have a long way to go). I'm sure this is something that might have occurred to others as well.

- The other and the most important aspect, again speaking from a common user's expectation, something that is intended for accessibility should be mobile-focuses, meaning it has to start from an Android app as majority (>470 mn[1] of India's Internet user population) Internet users access the Internet from their smartphones whereas most of them wouldn't have access to a computer

- Last but not the least, there is plenty of resources being spent for languages like English and anything in English, IMO would be reinventing the wheel whereas many Indian languages need support. Thankfully, Google is adding more languages though they are not always Open Source and that itself is a big issue for the Wikimedia community.


Thanks & Regards

Santosh Shingare, 
Executive member, Wikimedia India Chapter
+91 9890984632
Skype: cherishsantosh |  http://wiki.wikimedia.in 


On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 1:38 PM Pratik Shetty <pratik.shetty@tlrfindia.com> wrote:
Hey Subhashish,

Thanks for playing around with VideoWiki :) 

1. You should definitely check out Indic TTS which provides open source TTS engines in Indian languages (such as Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc). Note that we are also currently working on a feature that will allow users to add a human voice over before exporting a video. So we don't intend to restrict ourselves to only TTS voices in the near future :)

2.  Target Audience of VideoWiki - People with low literacy 
Target Audience's favorite mode of consumption - Videos in regional languages
What we are trying to do - Making Wikipedia more accessible to people with low literacy level by providing short 2 min wiki-based videos in regional languages. 

Reliance Jio has allowed many Indians to “join the internet” and connect to Wikipedia. However, 1 in every 4 Indian (330 million Indians) lacks the ability to read and comprehend text; therefore are unable to access Wikipedia, a predominantly text-based encyclopedia. To increase the access to Wikipedia to such new users, VideoWiki is currently working on building “neutral”, “reliable”, and “verifiable” videos in Indian languages, starting from Hindi.

3. Even though the editing of a VideoWiki article happens at laptops (as of now), the final WebM video file can be published in Wikipedia/YouTube which allows for viewing videos in mobile and that too in 240p/144p quality. 

Would love to continue our conversation on personal email chat. 

Regards,
Pratik



On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 1:12 PM Subhashish Panigrahi <psubhashish@gmail.com> wrote:
I think most noobs including myself would need some context here:

- Is there a sample that we can check out? (I looked up for Text2Video and found this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHX8FSJWzrU> but I think I'd rather not have any animation to save data if I was visually impaired because I fail to see the purpose of the animation in the first place)
- How many Indian languages have a working TTS as that would be the basis for a tool like this? (Open Source tools like NVDA <https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/userGuide.html?> which uses machine synthesis which is by far the only available TTS for several Indian languages)
- Which language Wikipedias have been tested on so far?
- I am yet to be convinced that VideoWiki is useful in any manner, particularly from a digital accessibility standpoint (in simple words, why one would use VideoWiki or what is the target audience for VideoWiki). It's fun to play with a platform like this but I'm still waiting to see the practical use (and I did have fun hearing to Wikipedia articles using VideoWiki)
- For something to work for Indian languages, the TTS itself should be decent enough and the application should not be data-heavy (thanks to carriers like Jio and in general drop in data charges, but we still have a long way to go). I'm sure this is something that might have occurred to others as well.
- The other and the most important aspect, again speaking from a common user's expectation, something that is intended for accessibility should be mobile-focuses, meaning it has to start from an Android app as majority (>470 mn[1] of India's Internet user population) Internet users access the Internet from their smartphones whereas most of them wouldn't have access to a computer
- Last but not the least, there is plenty of resources being spent for languages like English and anything in English, IMO would be reinventing the wheel whereas many Indian languages need support. Thankfully, Google is adding more languages though they are not always Open Source and that itself is a big issue for the Wikimedia community.


Subhashish


On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 12:05 PM Krishna Chaitanya Velaga <kcvelaga@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Santosh,

This looks nice a very nice idea. But it sounds a bit similar to VideoWiki (I am not sure though), which is currently under development. You may want to look at too at https://videowiki.wmflabs.org/, and Meta-Wiki page about the project at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Video.  It is currently under development, is being funded by WMF grants.

I am Ccing in the developer/creator into this thread. Also, do you have any link to share...?

Best,
Krishna C V.

On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 11:54 AM Santosh Shingare <cherishsantosh@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello All,

The idea behind of this application is to create video (text animation with audio). User can select article from wikipedia and app create video (text animation with audio). Application works like editor it will helps you to add text, text animation and audio. it will fetch text/media from wikipedia using API, then click the "Create" button to generate video.


Please feel free to share your feedback.

Thanks & Regards

Santosh Shingare, 
Executive member, Wikimedia India Chapter
+91 9890984632
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