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Roger Ebert ‘Speaks’ On The Oprah Winfrey Show

Published by Starr Rhett on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 11:00 am.

Roger Ebert appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday, where he “spoke” publicly for the first time since losing his voice and jaw as a result of various surgeries in a battle with thyroid cancer. He used what was described as a state of the art text-to-speech computer that allowed him to speak based on recorded samples of his original voice. It also injects inflection into his speech so that he doesn’t sound monotone. I found a clip of him from the show, explaining how the technology works. See/listen for yourself:

I like that his wife is very supportive of him. However, the voice still sounded robotic. The technology is cool, and I know there’s no such thing as a man made miracle, but I think its capability of replicating his voice was hyped up. But having that is better than having to be silent for the rest of his life. Technology is getting so advanced that I wonder if one day, doctors will be able to give him a prosthetic jaw. It won’t replace his voice box, but at least he’ll be able to have other functionalities of having a floor to his mouth. I guess it’s really true that you don’t know what you have ’til it’s gone.

Did you catch him on the show? Were you amazed by the technology, creeped out or not impressed at all?

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Comments

Are The Oscars Too Predictable This Year? | Lavraki.com said on March 4th, 2010

[...] On Oprah, Roger Ebert said ” I can’t remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars.”  I agree, hopefully the Oscars will have some shockers Sunday night, but all the winners seemed etched in Hollywood stone.  Check out my list below, the ones in bold are the ones that will more than likely win and the nominees in red are the ones that should win. [...]

Angela said on March 7th, 2010

I think that Mr. Ebert is probably grateful to be alive whether his voice sounds robotic or not. I think he is probably glad to have someone support and glad that he has voice to communicate. I don’t really think it is right for bloggers to critic the man’s voice just because it didn’t sound like his voice exactly. It shouldn’t matter what people think.

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