Podcasting and Podblogging

Podcasting is putting a sound recording (mp3 file) online, so that listeners can download your file into their portable mp3 players. Podblogging uses Text-to-Speech (TTS) to create a podcast.

Check out Jonathan Aquino's podblogging system. He also writes about Audiolicious, "a Windows program that lets you turn any RSS feed into a podcast... (it also uses) text-to-speech to convert the feed's webpages into MP3 files."

Last May 10, I posted entries as usual, and decided to make a voice recording of the written material. That way, the May 10 "podcast" can serve people who want to "read" Viloria.com even when they're away from the computer.

Reading entries and making mp3 recordings can be quite taxing, though, so this text-to-speech capability caught my attention.

I wasn't able to make the Ruby program work, but when I looked in the various folders of Audiolicious, I saw a Text-to-WAV vbs program. Simply drag a text file onto that vbs file (using Windows Explorer), and a wav file will appear in the same folder.

True, the voice sounds robotic, but if you need to make a voice recording of a text files without going hoarse, it's worth a try.

For example, I've uploaded a voice recording of a summary of Chapter 1 of the El Filibusterismo. If you visit the El Filibusterismo Chapter Summaries page, you'll see what looks like a sound player. The first entry is labeled "El Fili 01".

Thank you "Mary" for reading the text. (Please be kind to Mary for some of the pronunciation lapses.)
[ First posted on 05/18/2005 by Manuel Viloria ]