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<@BrunoJo> It's worth noting that there have been occasions where the library was blocked and it took a few weeks to workaround said block. For example, when a valid Sec-MS-Token became required, it took a while to implement it in the library: https://github.com/rany2/edge-tts/blob/08b10b931db3f788a506c...

Basically, it's a very bad idea to use this library for anything serious/mission critical. It also is really limited to only taking in text (i.e., no custom SSML, emotion elements, etc) as Microsoft restricts the API to only the features Microsoft Edge itself already supports. Generally commercial users would want these more advanced features and so they'd want to use Azure Cognitive Services.

At any rate this library was never really marketed, I'm not sure how it blew up. It was really only intended so that I can have audio files I can play back for my Home Assistant instance. Later, I started using it to generate e-books. In general, these are the two main uses of the library AFAIK.

<@BrunoJo> or run a kokoro tts docker container on your own hardware, the hw requirements aren't crazy: https://github.com/remsky/Kokoro-FastAPI

<@BrunoJo> Nice I was thinking about launching an API because providers like Replicate have long queues. I think if you can nail down latency and concurrency you may get a lot of users who need reliable fast TTS.

<@BrunoJo> Better yet, you can run it on your browser, in Javascript and not pay any fees! https://huggingface.co/spaces/webml-community/kokoro-web

<@BrunoJo> Interesting, I'm interested in something like this, but the page doesn't have much information. - What languages are supported? - How many voices are available? - Is it possible to use without a monthly subscription? I'd rather pay only based on my usage (I don't use it every month).

For my use case, I'd need access to a wide variety of languages, and ideally 5+ voices per language. I'm currently using Amazon Polly, but I wonder if there's something better now.

<@BrunoJo> Ah, I'm always looking for new ones, but it doesn't look like it supports SSML. Most engines have trouble with things like postal codes, names, and other implicit linguistic rules. Take the example

> Melania Trump's zip code is 20001.

It says "Melaynia Trump's zip code is twenty-thousand one". With SSML, you can tell the engine the correct pronunciation and to say a string of numbers digit-by-digit. Spelling proper nouns differently to trick it into pronouncing it correctly works until it doesn't.

Being able to tell it to pronounce "Melania" like [ˌməˈlɑːn.jə] or [%m@"lA:n.j@] and tweak other aspects of the synthesis with SSML is, in my opinion, an important part of a commercial speech synthesis offering.

I wonder how much effort is needed to make these engines work with SSML. Kokoro+SSML would be awesome.

<@BrunoJo> Hey BrunoJo, I'd like to learn more about lemonfox.ai, but there does not seem to be information such as "about us" links. Your service looks worth investigating.

<@BrunoJo> I wish Kokoro supported SSML... Is there a way to explicitly emphasize parts of the text?

<@modeless> The models you shared only support the top ~10 languages / english only.

I believe the Edge API supports more models:

https://gist.github.com/BettyJJ/17cbaa1de96235a7f5773b8690a2...

Do you know any commercial licensed TTS that support 50+ languages and are relatively small (e.g. many small models, not 1 big model)? Meta's open models supports like 300 languages, but the license doesn't permit commercial use :-/

<@modeless> "pirate"? This was always free.

<@modeless> Is Kokoro open source? I couldn't find it's source anywhere.

<@modeless> Typing anything with “r” into that text to speech box gives a random sentence instead

<@modeless> or directly try https://kokorotts.com/ or https://huggingface.co/spaces/hexgrad/Kokoro-TTS

<@chopete3> I read it first as Edge TTL!

<@chopete3> Edge = Microsoft Edge, a browser

<@slyn> I've been using https://readest.com/ lately. It's FOSS and just recently got this feature. The TTS voices are pretty natural and text is highlighted one sentence at a time. Plus the design of the product is great.

<@slyn> https://www.naturalreaders.com/, is has a free tier I think

<@slyn> The ReadEra app for android supports this, and I use it for reading/listening to ebooks during commute. It works well.

<@slyn> Calibre does this.

<@slyn> You can use a screen reader. Most of them have a focus highlight feature and use local tts.

<@slig> Windows have had built-in speech synthesis for quite a while here is a blog with a guide, but you can also look it up on msdn

https://www.pdq.com/blog/powershell-text-to-speech-examples/

<@caseyy> Entirely online.

<@gigel82> They have locked down these APIs slightly but it's not a very complex "DRM" mechanism: https://github.com/rany2/edge-tts/blob/08b10b931db3f788a506c...