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(a)wizzy.com>
To: <wikipedia-l(a)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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