# Whoah! Audio Preview on youtube.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 24, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355 "2008-11-24T23:36:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/1 "2008-11-24T23:36:20Z")

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Wow. I just noticed and tried the audio preview on Youtube. It sounded much more real than when I’ve tried text-to-speach devices before.

What’s the best text-to-speach software out there? I’ve often thought this would help me with proof reading or even reviewing text by others. I could “read” their paper, memo or long emails while cooking or cleaning.

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/2 "2008-11-24T23:42:16Z")

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Link?

Also - “speech” not “speach”.

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**Author:** ![Ice\_Cream\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ice\_Cream\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Cream_Man)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2008, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/3 "2008-11-25T00:26:29Z")

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This feature was probably added because of [this](http://xkcd.com/481/) comic.

Here’s the blog post about it.

> **[Youtube Audio Preview](https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/)**
>
> Wow. It seems someone at YouTUBE took this comic seriously and decided to add an “Audio Preview” feature. Now you can hear your comments read aloud to you. Of course, it’s an opti…

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**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/4 "2008-11-26T01:25:31Z")

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> [@jjimm](#):
>
> Link?
> 
> Also - “speech” not “speach”.

Umm, it’s on every youtube comment page, what would I link to?:rolleyes:

Pardon my typos from rapid typing. Get over it. :dubious:

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**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/5 "2008-11-26T01:44:04Z")

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> [@Ice\_Cream\_Man](#):
>
> This feature was probably added because of [this](http://xkcd.com/481/) comic.
> 
> Here’s the blog post about it.  
> [Youtube Audio Preview – xkcd](http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/)

Thanks! (Love xkcd, too.)

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoah-audio-preview-on-youtube/474355/6 "2008-11-26T02:08:19Z")

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> [@drhess](#):
>
> What’s the best text-to-speach software out there?

I attended a talk a little over a year ago where one of our professors showed off her text-to-speech system. It’s definitely on this side of the uncanny valley–if you didn’t know the speech was being generated by a computer, you would think it was a recording of a human with some odd tics. But I don’t think there are any commercial implementations out there yet.