Commercial / proprietary voice packs?

It would be cool if we could pay a rights holder (eg Paramount) to install a famous TV or movie character’s voice for specific events, or even TTS if feasible. I’d happily part with some cash to have KITT, Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s ST:TNG computer voice or the HAL: 9000 respond to my voice commands. This might also create interest in Mycroft from people who have never heard of the project.
EB

1 Like

That would be quite cool. I wouldnt go for it myself, but it could be worth it if there was enough demand. I did come across a John Cleese voice for Tom Tom (satnav) once. The owner was quite pleased with it. He even paid for it.

Unfortunately, although correct me if I’m wrong, but i think this would only work in cases where it’s restricted to only a select few responses. In the John Cleese/TomTom example, it only had a few things to say (“Turn left”,“turn right”, “Do a U turn”, etc) and then it was only funny (for the first couple of times you heard it ) when it randomly replaced a phrase with something silly.

I don’t think this would scale to all of the things Mycroft will need to say, but if I’m wrong then hey, let’s just get an impersonator in and save ourselves a few quid/bucks/local monetary unit colloquialism :slight_smile:

Yes, and for applications beyond the scope for which the custom voices have been created, the user will either have to specify a different voice, no voice or the default voice. But if your use of Mycroft is limited to applications covered by the custom voice (eg., HAL 9000 Mycroft only controls the garage bay door), then you’re good to go.
EB

@Eric_Beyer haha, yes, this would be quite awesome. Right now the big question is what is the best way to facilitate these voices. Looking at TTS software out there, there are a lot of different qualities when it comes to that software. If we could find something powerful and high-quality (as compared to like MaryTTS for instance). That would be awesome!