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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

#161

Post by vanderZwan »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #80
vanderZwan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is a valid one, but I want to add to it that it is also a matter of expectations and how one listens. Years ago, when I was dating someone who spoke Russian as one of her native languages, we had to do a funny compromise when watching films together with her parents: they didn't speak a word of English, so we'd use the Russian dub with English subtitles. I noticed that the Russian dub was just one man read…

Watching these as russian/english bilingual is very painful, tho I grew up in western world so maybe I'm just not used to it. To add on a slight tangent. Many books/audiobooks just don't exist in other languages at all. So even getting some monotone is a lot better than getting nothing. I think this is where these models really shine. Cheaply creating cross language media and unlocking the knowledge/media to underpri…

> Watching these as russian/english bilingual is very painful, tho I grew up in western world so maybe I'm just not used to it.

I figured that their opinion probably wasn't universal, hahaha.

And yes, it's at the very least a win for accessibility

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

#162

Post by ldoughty »

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 with you, but also want to point out:

New authors, self-publishers, can't afford tens of thousands of dollars to get an audiobook recorded professionally... This can limit their distribution.

Authors might even choose not to make such version (or lack confidence to record themselves), so AI capable of making a decently passable version would be nice -- something more than reading text blandly. AI in theory could attempt to track the scene and adjust.

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

#163

Post by karamanolev »

gampleman wrote: post #125
oldgradstudent wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference. Printing presses produce superior products. A mediocre audiobook is certainly better than no audiobook at all, but it is an inferior product to a well produced audiobook.

> Printing presses produce superior products. That seems like a highly dubitable statement. Many hand illuminated manuscripts are masterpieces of art. The advantage of the printing press was chiefly economical making the cost of a copy dramatically less, not an increase in quality (especially so by the aesthetical standards of the time).

Many (most, if not all) hand-made copies contained errors, which printed books did not. They were much closer to 1:1 copies.

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

#165

Post by monkeydust »

pprotas wrote: post #25

I would love to have an e-reader that allows me to switch between text and audio at the press of a button. Imagine reading your book on the couch and then switching into audio mode while doing the dishes seamlessly, by connecting bluetooth headphones.

Literally started doing that this week with Amazon Audible. I gave in an started the three month 99c trial and downloaded the app.

What surprised me a good way was my Kindle app was aware of this and asked if I wanted to download the audible version of the current book I am reading.

Been listening on the way to work and then reading on the way back. Enjoying it so far.

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

#167

Post by K0balt »

benatkin wrote: post #22
vinni2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the copyright issue? You can’t mimic the voice of a narrator without their consent. OpenAI landed in trouble after using Scarlett Johansson’s voice in a demo. https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24161253/scarlett-johanss...

She only won in that OpenAI decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Yeah, by my ear it was pretty clearly not SJ’s voice-likeness, although there were some superficial similarities.

But some people could have mistook it due to some regional accent similarities, though it would be akin to interpretation of any light southern drawl with a similar timbre as being SJ.

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

#168

Post by arafalov »

vanderZwan wrote: post #18
cess11 wrote: post #6

I would for sure not want this for fiction, it's too obvious that the voice has no understanding whatsoever of the text, but it's probably pretty nice for converting short news texts or notifications to audio.

Your point is a valid one, but I want to add to it that it is also a matter of expectations and how one listens. Years ago, when I was dating someone who spoke Russian as one of her native languages, we had to do a funny compromise when watching films together with her parents: they didn't speak a word of English, so we'd use the Russian dub with English subtitles. I noticed that the Russian dub was just one man read…

Here is the rest of that story.

When the foreign movies started to filter into the Soviet Union's illegal movie theatres, you would get 3 or 4 movies playing at once in one room. There would be a TV in each corner of the room and 4 or 5 rows of plastic chairs in front of it in an arch.

ALL of the movies were being revoiced by the same person. So, if you were sitting in the back of the 5th row, you were potentially getting the sound from an action movie, a comedy, a horror movie and a romance at the same time. In the same voice.

You learned to filter really well. So, if that's what they were trained on, watching a single movie must have been very relaxing.

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

#169

Post by arafalov »

calgoo wrote: post #29
cess11 wrote: post #6

I would for sure not want this for fiction, it's too obvious that the voice has no understanding whatsoever of the text, but it's probably pretty nice for converting short news texts or notifications to audio.

Audible has thousands of books available "for free" with their membership that are all AI generated. I was the same in the start, but after listening to a few, it really comes down to the voice used. I spent 8h on a plane listening to 1 book, and there was maybe 5 occasions where i had an issue with the voice; and i think all where just "AI weirdness", similar to chat LLMs messing up simple sentence structure or imag…

The one I tried, had a lot of issues. It was a music theory book and it did not know how to pronounce C# (it kept saying C 'hash'). It also referred to, but did not read out the diagrams, or tables.

So, it was not just the voice, but the quality control pipeline that was missing as well.

Maybe it mostly works for old plain text books, but if nobody is checking.....

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

#170

Post by littlestymaar »

turnsout wrote: post #152
littlestymaar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the printing press was the root cause for the century of religious wars that soaked Europe with blood, and was key in the revolutions that overthrown absolute monarchies all over Europe, I don't think it's as good as an example as you think it is. Death of a civilization doesn't mean disappearance of mankind or even overall regression on the long term.

Those revolutions were ultimately positive. The alternative would be the continued rule by monarchs and a single powerful religion

See my second paragraph. It can be ultimately positive while still being civilization-ending.
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