Hamilton-based software solutions provider Company-X is launching its Voxcoda text-to-voice solution to the global market.
Voxcoda uses artificial intelligence (AI) based machine language services with Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) tags to simulate appropriate accents and languages, with a variety of pitches and tones for international markets, with the choice of female or male sounding voices.
The solution was originally built for Swedish agriculture business DeLaval to create AI-generated voices for video training voiceovers, providing control over emphasis, pitch, speed and tone.
It precluded the need for paying voiceover actors, studios and engineers to cover the various languages needed for its e-learning courses.
Company-X co-founder and director David Hallett said that the Voxcoda solution presents a significant opportunity for the company and is spurring its growth in international markets.
“The flexibility of the Voxcoda tool allows the project team to make sure that voice quality meets the requirements that any user of the final product would expect,” said DeLaval Manufacturing solutions technical development manager Mario Lopez Benavides. “Project time is shortened without compromising quality, and that is something we value greatly.”
Voxcoda product owner Lance Bauerfeind compared users’ ability to use SSML tags to alter the generated voice’s delivery to a director providing feedback to an actor.
“The editor also allows the user to build a pronunciation library of acronyms and domain-specific terminology. The SSML editor delivers text-to-speech services to the DeLaval user at a fraction of the cost of booking a voice artist, recording studio and sound engineer. With this tool, DeLaval has transformed the manual voice translation process internationally into a fully automated digital process.”
Voxcoda is also being used by Stockholm-based multinational CBG to create synthetic audio for its translation services and language solutions.
CBG key account manager Poul Jacobsen described it as “A good option that falls between creating subtitles and hiring a traditional voiceover artist, sound engineer and studio.”
