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Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

claudio.uk

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Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#131

Post by rd11235 »

laserbeam wrote: post #21

On the one hand, this is very convenient. Probably cool for some non-fiction. On the other, some of my favorite audio books all stood out because the narrator was interpreting the text really well, for example by changing the pacing during chaotic moments. Or those audiobooks with multiple narrators and different voices for each character. Not to mention that sometimes the only cue you get for who's speaking during d…

I agree but the opposite can be true too. Sometimes the narrator seems to target some general audience that doesn’t fit me at all, in a way that makes me cringe when I listen, until I stop listening altogether. In these cases I’d rather listen to a relatively flat narration from a tool like this.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#133

Post by nottorp »

stavros wrote: post #57
nottorp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except cars were faster than horses, while audio or video content is much slower than reading.

Cars also have legs while audio doesn't, a point which is equally irrelevant. If people don't need to read, they don't need to read, and no matter how much a random Internet commenter wants them to need it, it won't change anything. Skills atrophy for a reason. It's fine to let them. You may as well be lamenting the lost art of long division.

> Cars also have legs while audio doesn't, a point which is equally irrelevant.

That's what a LLM would say :)

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#134

Post by llamaimperative »

basedrum wrote: post #100

I want to be able to seemlessly read on my ebook reader and then put in my headphones and go for a walk with the dog and resume on audio where I left off. then when I come back, my ereader is at the right place where the audio finished and I can resume reading

Readwise Reader does this. A litttttle finicky at tracking read location but it’s workable

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#135

Post by woolion »

If you look for a lot of the great classics, audiobooks results are inundated with basic TTS "audiobooks" that are impossible to filter out. These are impossible to listen to because they lack the proper intonation marking the end of sentences, making it very tiring to parse. It might be better than tuna can sounding recordings, especially if you want to ear them in traffic (a common requirement), but that's about it. The alternative, if you want real quality recordings, is to stop reading classics and instead read latest Japanime Isekai of murder mystery, these have very good options on the market. Anyway, I don't think it needs more justification that it covers a good niche usage.

I'm checking what the actual quality is (not a cherry-picked example), but:

Started at: 13:20:04 Total characters: 264,081 Total words: 41548 Reading chapter 1 (197,687 characters)...

That's 1h30 ago, there's no kind of progress notification of any kind, so I'm hoping it will finish sometime. It's using 100% of all available CPUs so it's quite a bother. (this is "tale of a tub" by Swift, it's about half of a typical novel length)

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#136

Post by whazor »

laserbeam wrote: post #21

On the one hand, this is very convenient. Probably cool for some non-fiction. On the other, some of my favorite audio books all stood out because the narrator was interpreting the text really well, for example by changing the pacing during chaotic moments. Or those audiobooks with multiple narrators and different voices for each character. Not to mention that sometimes the only cue you get for who's speaking during d…

A GenAI model that read audiobooks with such dramatisation is really my dream. There are so many books that I would want to listen to, but still lack such an adaptation. Also it takes months after the book release before the audiobook gets released.

Just imagine what this would do for writers. They can get instant feedback and adjust their book for the audiobook.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#139

Post by herculity275 »

Very nice! I fiddled with this idea a few months back but the models available at the time were woefully slow on a macbook. Will definitely give this a spin, there's a large category of web serials and less popular translated novels that never get audiobook releases.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#140

Post by csantini »

woolion wrote: post #135

If you look for a lot of the great classics, audiobooks results are inundated with basic TTS "audiobooks" that are impossible to filter out. These are impossible to listen to because they lack the proper intonation marking the end of sentences, making it very tiring to parse. It might be better than tuna can sounding recordings, especially if you want to ear them in traffic (a common requirement), but that's about it…

Yeah, that's a known issue, if the book is all on a single chapter you don't get any sense of progress. I may fix that next weekend
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