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Poster: simon c Date: Dec 15, 2003 2:17pm
Forum: gutenberg Subject: Re: Audio-Books at Gutenberg

Looks like some of the Gutenberg audiobooks (from audiobooksforfree.com) are deliberately 'crippled' to be lower bandwidth because the higher bandwidth versions are still sold. Still better than nothing, though.

However, the other person who does Gutenberg audiobooks seems to be a guy called Mike Eschman, and his recordings have a higher bitrate:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/author?name=Eschman%2C%20Mike

It'd be cool to see a separate 'Gutenberg Audio' collection with all of these in one place, perhaps even labeled by bitrate.

s!

ps - the above information supplied by about 10 minutes of Googling, if you know better, don't hesitate to correct me!

This post was modified by simon c on 2003-12-15 22:17:05

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Poster: Roland Wolf Date: Dec 15, 2003 5:01pm
Forum: gutenberg Subject: Re: Audio-Books at Gutenberg

I checked a couple of Audio-Books from Mike Eschmann. They were all the result of pushing text through a text-to-speech filter. This way the complete Gutenberg library can be converted as a batch job. Mike Eschmanns contribution is certainly valuable in some situations. Only a recording of a good speaker however provides true listening pleasure. Therefore the catalog entry should specify the conversion method.

My intention was to republish a Gutenberg audio-book as a part of a multimedia-product. Paying the requested 20% of the gross profit is not a problem, however the audio quality must meet consumers expectation.
Regards
Roland Wolf

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Poster: simon c Date: Dec 15, 2003 11:46pm
Forum: gutenberg Subject: Re: Audio-Books at Gutenberg

Aw, I didn't know the Mike Eschman stuff is text to speech :( Thanks for picking that up.

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Poster: visa798 Date: Jan 5, 2004 11:18am
Forum: gutenberg Subject: Re: Audio-Books at Gutenberg

Has anyone tried to run the text through a text to speech reader that uses the AT&T Natural Voices engine (such as TextAloud MP3)?

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Poster: Robot Books Date: Aug 3, 2004 1:14am
Forum: gutenberg Subject: Re: Audio-Books at Gutenberg

I've been using the Festival Speech Synthesis System for a number of projects. I have to say, it sounds a whole lot better than the audio produced for Gutenberg, mentioned in previous posts on this thread.

Hopefully, today will be my first post on archive.org, and people can judge for themselves.
The posting is not a classic text, but falls more into the current events category. However, perhaps my next project will be to offer a couple of books to Project Gutenberg. I've already synthesized a couple of Mark Twain books, and War and Peace.

I've actually gotten to the point I kinda like the Robot voice. However, I recognize that many people are put off by it. I think people should give synthesized speech more consideration. Once you get used to it, a whole new word of mobile listening is available.