WhiteboardVCR: a Web Lecture Production Tool for Combining Human Narration and Text-to-Speech Synthesis

With rapid advances in computer speech technology, TTS (text -to-speech) synthesis is becoming increasingly attractive as a supplement or even as an alternative to the human narration. This paper explores the potential of TTS synthesis in Web lectures. We propose WhiteboardVCR, a new approach that we have developed for producing and presenting Web lectures. The system supports synchronization of slide markups and slide switching with a narration. The narration is a combination of video, human voice, and speech synthesis. Users can create a presentation on the fly or at leisure time, and edit it before publishing to the Web. Preliminary experimental results of using WhiteboadVCR from the perspective of the audience are discussed.