[school-discuss] 12 new audio books for download as 2 CDs, with improved (i.e. lengthened) phrasing

[mike eschman <meschman@etc-edu.com>]

etc ... Happy New Year 2003! 

Technology demonstration of new scripts for audio book formatting, New 
broadcast program and new free downloadable CDs.

Technology. 

On The first Men in the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seaand Mystery Island, 
we created new .mp3 audio books using 100% script automation.  On the 
negative side, what it did to "mooncalf" is enough to make you ... :-)
On the positive side, if you actually listen to these books, and you are a 
reader (if you think doing the sports section once a week cuts it, move on), 
you get pulled in for extended periods, inevitably getting "pulled back" by 
some new butchered words, or the unintended reading of errant punctuation 
marks.

A step up the food chain is Peter Pan, which got about 20 minutes of 
pre-listen in 4 of the chapters, and thus benefited from some phonics 
assistance and phrase shaping.

Another rung up the ladder, The Jungle Book got a rewrite to make it more 
digestible to Emacspeak and ViaVoice.But still used full automation to create 
the .mp3s.  Total spot check and rework time on Jungle Book was less than 2 
hours.

Finally, I pulled the stops out on Dr. Moreau.  11 hours in rewrite, 5 hours 
of pre-listening, another 7 hours in final revisions of re-write, then listen 
and correct each of the 22 chapters in the book.  This poor book has gotten 
worse treatment in the movies than any that come to memory, yet it is 
possibly Well's finest work in terms of plot construction and execution.

The whole crop of books uses the new extended phrase scripts, to a greater or 
lesser extent.  Moreau especially.  The benefit of the script is an 
improvement in the coherence of the presentation.  Unmodified text gets 
phrased poorly if you go much more than 7 or 8 words without a punctuation 
mark.  Punctuation marks very much play the role of a "state boundary marker" 
in computer science terms (  think scope of effect and scope of control).  
Duh, pretty suprising in a program that parses text for a living, eh?

The extended phrase scripts vary speech rate (a sort of dithering) and shape 
the phrase in time (i thing this is interpertation, albeit primitive).  Laid 
on top of the scripts that position pauses and dither voice frequency and 
resonance, I think it may bring us a step closer to a natural, or at least 
acceptable, performance, beyond simple utility.

One day soon (i.e. less than 5 years), we'll be having a competition with the 
fabled (yet derelict) "Live Reader", you know, the one that does it better 
but never shows up for work :-) 

This month, we are introducing a facility that will integrate images into the 
presentation.  That will especially include text.  And more especially, the 
text that is fed to the speech engine.  This will allow collaboration on 
works, in addition to enhancing the user experience.  It'll come on-line 
first, then find it's way to VCD format (without the editing of course).  A 
VCD is a poor man's DVD, because it uses cheap as dirt CD-R blanks.


etc ... broadcast January 1st, 2003,p.

channel 1 : 

Peter Pan by Barrie, 
J. S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

Channel 2 :

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling,
A Midsummer's Night Dream by Mendelssohn,
The Fairy's Kiss by Stravinsky.

Channel 3 :

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells, 
Beethoven Symphonies 4 & 8, 
Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky (Complete), 
The Firebird by Stravinsky (complete)


New Year's CD (2 CD Set) :

data cds. these files are .zip files,
that unzip to one .mp3 file per chapter.

Disc 1 :

Connecicut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Disc 2 :

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
Peter Pan by Barrie
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

mike eschman, etc ...
http://www.etc-edu.com
"Not just an afterthought ...




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(http://www.etc-edu.com ) Not just an afterthought ...