Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

marhamilresearch4.blob.core.windows.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 195 posts

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#31

Post by brudgers »

rhyme-boss wrote: post #30

Isn't listening to people tell stories fundamental to what we are? Wouldn't you rather be a part of a culture that cares about the difference between listening to a person's voice vs. a bot? Edit: My concern is audio files ending up in places where they aren't clearly labelled as AI-generated.

I think we should recognize that most choices are not between bread and cake.

They are between bread and going hungry.

I am not certain AI voiced audio books are better than nothing, but that's the way I'd bet. YMMV.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#32

Post by Pxtl »

xrd wrote: post #20

When I read Rikki Tikki Tavi to my 8 yr old daughter, we play a game. She asks me to change one of the words in the page and she tries to listen and see if she can figure it out. It is mentally taxing at the end of a long day to do that on the fly without pausing to figure out the word to slip in. And, my daughter is very sharp and catches them. I listened to a few of these. The voice sounds muted at times, as if the…

> H.G. Wells was read with a pause in between each period because it "thinks" that each letter boundary is a sentence change

This is why I'm a firm "two spaces after the period" guy. Makes it unambiguous the difference between the abbrevs. period and the sentence-end period. Otherwise you get sentences like "Let's not forget that Dr. Principal does not care about this." which can be read in two valid ways.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#33

Post by 8s2ngy »

Upon first impression, this is incredible! Audiobooks have enabled me to enjoy fiction books that I, otherwise, would not have been able to due to time constraints or other commitments. Perhaps, in the near future, AI will be able to make many obscure books that are collecting dust in museums and libraries accessible to the public through audiobooks. That is a future to look forward to.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#34

Post by tkgally »

janekm wrote: post #29
xrd wrote: post #20

When I read Rikki Tikki Tavi to my 8 yr old daughter, we play a game. She asks me to change one of the words in the page and she tries to listen and see if she can figure it out. It is mentally taxing at the end of a long day to do that on the fly without pausing to figure out the word to slip in. And, my daughter is very sharp and catches them. I listened to a few of these. The voice sounds muted at times, as if the…

Elevenlabs is a lot closer to compelling audiobook narration (needs a better way to deal with multiple characters in a story without manual use of multiple voices): https://pub-a24da573c61f4b2d905bdebb2d0ecf88.r2.dev/ElevenLa... (an H.G.Wells example I just asked it to read).

I was going to mention ElevenLabs, too. Their samples are very impressive in how the intonation and word stress are varied based on the text’s meaning. Their pricing is a bit high for personal use, though.

(The link you posted seems to have been truncated. Can you try posting it again?)

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#37

Post by bunderbunder »

didntcheck wrote: post #4

See also: Librivox [1], for public-domain audio books read by actual humans [1] https://librivox.org/

Lit2Go is also good: https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

The sibling poster is right, the quality varies. But the upper end of the quality range is really quite good. One of the best-read audiobooks I've ever heard was a Lit2Go edition of Pygmalion. And, for that matter, one of the worst-read audiobooks I've ever heard was an edition of an extremely famous and commercially successful book that I bought on Audible.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#39

Post by chthonicdaemon »

rhyme-boss wrote: post #30

Isn't listening to people tell stories fundamental to what we are? Wouldn't you rather be a part of a culture that cares about the difference between listening to a person's voice vs. a bot? Edit: My concern is audio files ending up in places where they aren't clearly labelled as AI-generated.

Do you have the same objection to reading transcripts?

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#40

Post by rhyme-boss »

chthonicdaemon wrote: post #39
rhyme-boss wrote: post #30

Isn't listening to people tell stories fundamental to what we are? Wouldn't you rather be a part of a culture that cares about the difference between listening to a person's voice vs. a bot? Edit: My concern is audio files ending up in places where they aren't clearly labelled as AI-generated.

Do you have the same objection to reading transcripts?

Transcripts of what? I think stories are special, and I wouldn't lump them together with "all text".
Post reply on HN