Review of the best online text dubbing services

2022-10-16

Speech services may be required for a variety of reasons. Services that pronounce sentences aloud are indispensable for people with disabilities. In addition, they will be useful for those who study a foreign language and want to hear the correct pronunciation of phrases. Speakers will also be useful for those who are used to hearing information by ear.

The best online services for text pronunciation. Let us also consider the best programs with which you can listen to any information. Each of them has its own advantages and a wide list of features: paid and free.

Content :

Comparison of synthesizers features (table)

In this comparison table of speech synthesizers we focus on the quality and options for dubbing text. Evaluation criteria:

• The presence of Russian and English languages
• What is available for free, cost of additional services
• Manual female voices, variety
• Voice for books and large text
• Synthesis

Google Translate

The Google Translate translator from the largest company has become the classic choice not only for online translation but also for the dubbing of typed text. All you have to do is type a few sentences and press the speaker button to play the text. Voice input is enabled if you have a microphone. The web service allows the typing of texts up to 5000 characters in length, which can be considered a rather impressive value.

With authorization in the Google Account it is possible to save your audio tracks in the "Favorites" section. Translation from more than 100 languages is supported. There is no paid service for Google Translate.

Only one sound speed and only a female voice with a robot-like timbre are available by default. This is the only disadvantage of the online service of the famous corporation.

By the way, the best voice translators are presented in this review.

Voxworker

Online speech synthesizer Voxworker allows you to voice up to 1500 characters entered into a text field in Russian. All this is free of charge. You can either play the audio recording directly on the website or download it for local use.

On the main page you find examples of the voice synthesizer engine. Not that it is very impressive: there is a certain roboticism in the pronunciation of both male and female voices. For large amounts of text this option will probably be tedious to listen to, but for short-term tasks, perhaps, the normal option. You do not find any paid functions with Voxworker.

It is very easy to use Voxworker:

1. Select a male or a female synthesizer
2. Set the tone and speed
3. Place or input text in the
4. Choose Voicing

Other features:

• The site offers 3 female and 2 male speech synthesis options.
• You can choose the pitch and speed of the playback.
• There are two language options: Russian and English.
• It is possible to insert logical pauses in the text.
• Audio recording can be downloaded or scrolled to the desired fragment.

Alice assistant: dubbing through the browser

From March 2020, Yandex Alice has the ability to dub texts from almost any web page in Russian.

This technology works on Android mobile devices and Windows PCs. The support of the other platforms is not announced, but it is possible that the online text-to-speech technology will also work on iOS and Mac OS.

The voice assistant reads text from a page in a female voice, ignoring the design elements while trying to find basic information online.

In order to have Alice voice the text, you need:

1. Download Yandex Browser for Android or PC
2. Open the desired web page, website;
3. Tap the headphone button (and give Yandex Browser access to the microphone);

   

4. To read the text you should select the text and in the context menu select "Speak Out";

   

5. You can also listen to the text by saying into the microphone "Listen, Alice, read this page";

   

Voicebot

A more advanced online voiceover service. Its specific features:

• support for neural network algorithms,
• make your speech more lively by adding pauses, accents, intonation, both manually and in semi-automated mode,
• supported Russian, English, Kazakh, Turkish,
• can create dialogues by adding several characters with different voices to voice it.

Voicebot provides nearly ten female and ten male voice synthesis options. Of these, as you can see, there are free and paid ones. To see the quality and the difference, try listening to samples. You may have up to 20 thousand symbols for 1 rub. It is easy to register and it is not much harder to top up your balance.

On the whole the service is doing a good job. It can be used to read audiobooks with Russian voices, large texts, even commercials on the web.

Yandex.Translator

The Russian equivalent of the previous service, Yandex.Translator has all the functionality provided by Google: the addition of audio /files to the favorites, a speech generator, translation from hundreds of world languages and a virtual keyboard. To use all the provided options it is required to authorize in Yandex.Mail, there is no paid service.

The only thing that distinguishes Yandex.Translator from Google Translate in the best way is the number of characters available for dubbing in the native analogue is two times bigger and reaches 10000 symbols.

unitools

The main page has about 10 voices, male and female, but in general according to the creators of synthesizer about 500. These are probably available in the paid version of "talker". It is possible to pay for the text-to-voice conversion with tokens.

In the paid version the API is available, the developers may use it to voice texts on the other services.

On the whole it is a good speech synthesizer for ordinary users and developers with the possibility to save the audio /files. We advise you to take a look at the free version first.

Let us mention the other important features of Unitools:

• Saving the result of the voice synthesis in wav and mp3 formats.
• Voice pitch and speed are variable.
• Creating dialogs with multiple bots.
• changes intonation, accents (not available in other speech synthesizers).

Balabolka (Windows)

Balabolka is a desktop program, uses the embedded Speech API speech synthesizer. Works on Windows platform (XP/7/8/10). It does not normally require installation of additional language or sound packages. Just download, install and use. By the way, there is a portable version of "Balabolka", it does not even require installation and can be launched from a flash drive.

Features of this "talker":

• Switch between Speech API 4, 5 and Microsoft Speech Platform: depending on the OS version, a specific speech synthesizer may be used.
• Speech speed, pitch and volume settings.
• Read text from different sources: clipboard, document, text file downloaded from the "Babolka" menu; text typed on the keyboard.
• Checking spelling, punctuation marks.
• Fragmenting text, comparing /files.
• Book dubbing software. Supports various ebook and document formats: AZW, CHM, DjVu, DOC, DOCX, EPUB, FB2 and others.
• Conversion of text to audio (formats - WAV, MP3, MP4, OGG and WMA) and vice versa.

In general, "Balabalka" is a great and also a free program that gives a head start to online services. It contains no annoying advertisement and the interface is very clear and friendly for the more or less well informed Windows user.

Download Acapela

Acapela

One of the most famous talkers, the web utility Acapela has a small amount of customization and yet a huge amount of functionality. The site is written entirely in English, but the fairly clear interface makes using the service intuitively simple. Text-to-speech is supported in 35 languages and dialects, each with a specific accent.

Up to 18 different tones are available for some languages, making this speech synthesizer unique. Such a variety is useful if you want the typed text to sound emotionally or to be pronounced by the right actor. Unfortunately, only one voice is available for the Russian language, therefore the variety of tones will be useful only for those who learn a foreign language.

The basic functionality of the program is completely free, but to download the developer's package, allowing you to download and work with the spoken texts, you will have to pay a considerable sum of 1500 Euros. This option will only be useful for advanced users developing audio tracks for commercial purposes.

Acapela has a limit on the input text length of 300 characters. This is twice as much as with ISpeech, but much less than with Google Translate. The web service runs smoothly and every text is dubbed as if by a real person - this is the advantage of Acapela compared to the utilities where artificial voices are like cold mechanical robots.

Text-To-Speech

Speech synthesizer with minimalistic interface Text-To-Speech allows to dub up to 1000 characters long fragments in one of 15 world languages, not counting dialects. You just need to enter your own text and click "Say It" button. The program automatically detects the language in which the words are typed and translates the text into a voice.

The program allows switching between seven speed modes, also a small window allows to activate the virtual keyboard and to edit the font size. As a result the user is provided with an audio file with the voice of the entered phrases in the selected tone and speed. You can listen to the voice synthesizer immediately, in online mode. The possibility to download the track is not provided and there is no paid service.

From Text To Speech

The record-breaker for the length of text available for voice dubbing is the online 'talker' From Text To Speech which is capable of handling up to 50000 characters. This is more, than any other similar service with wide functionality.

In this service it is possible to enter the text and to choose one of 8 languages, speed (4 modes are available) and voice dubbing. For Russian only one, female voice generator is available, for English there are five, both female and male. One of the disadvantages is that the conversion of the text in the audio file requires a sufficiently large amount of time - it takes up to 10 seconds to process one word. However, as a result, you can download the track to your own PC absolutely free of charge. This is another strong advantage of the service over its competitors where you would be charged for this function.

ISpeech

The program ISpeech is in the list of the first to be noticed for a reason. Its minimalistic interface allows you to access the service as quickly as possible. It is only necessary to enter text, choose language and click on sounding button - text playback will work through the speakers. You can also switch between the male and female voices of the text, as well as choose the speed of reading sentences. There are three modes available: slow, medium and fast.

Paying subscribers have the possibility to download an audio fragment to their PC. The cheapest one will cost $50. However, all other more pressing functions are absolutely free including support for 30 languages. Therefore ISpeech will be ideal for learning a foreign language and memorizing phonetics.

Perhaps the most significant disadvantage of the speech synthesizer is the noticeable limitation on the number of characters you may read a text up to 150 characters long.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am searching for a service where you may choose several options with female voice-over text. Suggest something

Allisa Assistant is one of the good ones available. The text is played with intonation, but unfortunately you can not select the options for pronunciation, timbre. In this case the best solution is ozvuchtext.ru service where you can switch the voice tracks.

Why in Google Translate text voicing with intonation is not available (as if the text is pronounced by a robot).

This service is designed primarily to translate texts in English, Russian and hundreds of other languages. Using it for dubbing is not the best option. Intonation is supported by most TTS-services, that have good synthesizer. Try Balabolka or Acapela (second option is paid).

Suggest not an Internet service, but a Windows program (preferably free), that would support voiceover text from books, for example.

The program Balabolka works on Windows platform from XP to Windows 10. It is completely free of charge. The choice of language engines in Russian and English is small but additional ones can be downloaded from the Web (see help). It is possible to upload a large text, also in txt or fb2 format.

Do I have to pay for the text dubbing to online services?

Paid features are contained in Acapela and Textvrech. They require a subscription or payment in installments for the amount of text translated. Other applications and services mentioned in the text are free to use.