Words can be replaced or added in recordings with ease
Scientists
have developed a new software that allows people to edit audio recording of a
human voice with the ease of changing words on a computer screen.
The
technology developed by researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. may do
for audio recordings what word processing software did for the written word.
The
software, named VoCo, provides an easy means to add or replace a word in a
recording of a human voice. New words are then automatically synthesised in the
speaker’s voice.
The
system, which uses a sophisticated algorithm to recreate a particular voice,
could one day make editing podcasts and narration in videos much easier.
The
technology could provide a launching point for creating personalised robotic
voices. “VoCo provides a peek at a very practical technology for editing audio
tracks, but it is also a harbinger for future technologies that will allow the
human voice to be synthesised and automated in remarkable ways,” said Adam
Finkelstein, a professor of computer science at Princeton.
VoCo’s
user interface looks similar to other audio editing software, with
visualisation of the waveform of the audio track and a set of cut, copy and
paste tools.
Faster process
Unlike
other programmes, VoCo allows the user to replace or insert words that do not
exist in the track simply by typing them in. VoCo then synthesises the new word
by stitching together snippets of audio from elsewhere the narration.
“Currently,
if you want to add a word, it is possible only through a painstaking trial and
error process of searching for small audio snippets,” said Finkelstein.
The
finding was published in the journal Transactions
on Graphics.
Source:THE HINDU-17th May,2017
