Roger Ebert dramatically regains his voice with help from CereProc (video)

Roger Ebert, perhaps best known as the Hardy to Siskel's Laurel during his days spent thumbing up and down criticisms at films, has achieved a technological miracle of sorts. After a series of cancer treatments and operations left the man mute and without a lower jaw, Ebert regained his voice in dramatic fashion on Oprah, of all places. A company called CereProc has recreated his voice through its text-to-speech technologies assisted by decades of recordings captured from his television appearances and DVD movie commentary tracks -- not exactly applicable to everyone with speaking disorders. Nevertheless, check the clip after the break to witness the impact his semi-recovered voice has on his wife, Chaz. While it definitely needs tweaking, the results are pretty remarkable.

[vailmcc Posted Mar 3rd 2010 11:31AM]

What I don't think many of you here understand is that CereProc has replicated Mr. Ebert's own voice. This is incredibly difficult, and very, very cool.
It's great to hear you again, Mr. Ebert!

[AlexSanchez Posted Mar 3rd 2010 11:36AM]

It honestly brought a tear to my own eye

Just seein him like that, knowing he wasn't able to talk, and then his wife's reactions.

Congratulations Mr. Ebert :) I hope you keep receiving updates :)

[glennS Posted Mar 3rd 2010 12:12PM]

I wish I could watch the video at work. Argh! Websense, you are my nemesis! Anyway, sounds like a really nice story, I will have to watch the video when I get home.

[RikF Posted Mar 3rd 2010 12:13PM]

Wonderful news, but a slight correction. According to Ebert, they couldn't use his TV footage as it always had background noise (movie clips etc.) or the presenters interrupting each other. It was his movie commentaries (the film companies dug out the original recordings for him) that allowed this to be done. In the wonderful esquire piece linked above, he jokes that asking for a moment of silence with the sound of the transformers tearing the top off a pyramid in the background would have been inappropriate! I hope I share his optimism and good humor if anything like that should befall me.

[loocas Posted Mar 3rd 2010 12:15PM]

I want Don LaFontaine back!

[droidlev Posted Mar 3rd 2010 12:40PM]

What a heart-warming story. Very cool.

[ECVOICE Posted Mar 3rd 2010 5:20PM]

That's amazing... and very likely to become more a possibility for people in the future.

To think CereProc went into archives of material, material where there was never any intention to reproduce it for text-to-speech, and to put together what is hopefully a very large vocabulary for Roger.

Can you imagine how much better it could sound if you knew you were going to lose your vocal chords, and spent some time recording isolated words to create such a library?

Still, amazing, amazing stuff. Good for him, and anyone else who may benefit from this type of technology in the future.

[Mike V Posted Mar 3rd 2010 5:43PM]

Yeah, before you go into surgery you record all the sounds necessary to produce this.

I've seen this in a movie (can't remember which, Gattica maybe?)

Anyone know which one?

[brnkcv Posted Mar 3rd 2010 8:40PM]

This is like the saddest thing ever.

[TheColonel Posted Mar 4th 2010 7:27AM]

Ok I'm man enough to admit that that made my eyes water up just a little bit...

[Reaper man Posted Mar 4th 2010 10:25AM]

A macbook? ewww... why isn't this tagged apple?