On ‘Oprah,’ Ebert begins to sound like his former self

Published 4:00 am Saturday, February 27, 2010

Nearly four years after a battle with thyroid cancer robbed him of the ability to speak, iconic film critic Roger Ebert sounded like his former self Friday during a taping of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the show’s producer said.

It was no medical miracle, but rather a demonstration of new software using audio recordings of Ebert to create a synthetic voice that sounds like his own.

CereProc, a company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, created the voice for him using mostly audio of Ebert’s DVD commentaries on “Citizen Kane” and “Casablanca.”

The company’s technology allows Ebert to sound more natural than other “text to speech” software — even allowing for a range of emotions. “Roger has many years of experience in broadcasting,” said Matthew Aylett, chief technical officer for CereProc. “Obviously we couldn’t record him but he did have a lot of audio material we could use to build his voice.”

While Ebert’s new voice sounds like his own, it occasionally makes errors, Aylett said. In particular, the software has difficulty pronouncing unusual proper names and sometimes fails to make intonation sound natural, he said.

Ebert has big plans, including using his own voice to host online or telecast video essays, he wrote on his blog. “I am greatly cheered,” he wrote.