Youtube Audio Preview

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Wow. It seems someone at YouTUBE took this comic seriously and decided to add an “Audio Preview” feature. Now you can hear your comments read aloud to you.

Of course, it’s an optional button using speech synth rather than a mandatory dramatic reading, so it’ll just be used for entertainment by people who haven’t played with a speech synthesizer before:

But then, after a little more browsing around, I see this:

So maybe there’s hope after all.

523 thoughts on “Youtube Audio Preview”

  1. You can download “iTunes Plus” songs that are DRM free, and are sometimes the same price as the DRM’d ones. In Rainbows, for example.

  2. Well having In Rainbows DRM free on itunes isn’t exactly much of an achievement considering Radiohead let you pay whatever you want for it, even nothing.

    Defending iTunes for not putting DRM on an already DRM free and effectively “free” album, especially while iTunes is charging for it is a bit ridiculous.

  5. There are many places where one can legally get DRM-free music (not counting Amazon, because that is only available to US residents, which makes it much more restrictive than DRM since I can’t buy anything at all, no matter how much money or how many kinds of music player I have), but if I can’t find what I want without DRM, I buy it from iTunes. If I really need to get the music into another format, all I need to do is burn it to a CD and rip it again, which isn’t breaking any rules as far as I know, or at least if it is, then it’s interesting that the functionality is within iTunes itself.

    Still, I guess it would be annoying if I had to do that with my entire iTunes-bought library, in that case I guess I’d have to find some kind of potentially illegal hack. Who knows? I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it, but for now, I plead YAGNI.

  6. Re: Fiction Rule of Thumb

    Does this rule have a /name/? “The Munroe Rule of Fictive Argot” or something?

    The “Munroe Dictum?” (That one sounds all mysterious, like a Dan Brown novel!)

  8. eMusic! Always DRM-free, always really cool. Get your music at very reasonable prices…. no need to pirate when it’s practically free.

    (no, I don’t work for eMusic, I just really like it!)

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  11. i just wanna inform that i´ve made a tattoo of a xkcd character… thought you may like to know :) bye

  12. If you really have a crapload of problems with DRM’d songs you can just de-DRM them with a program like Tunebite or even Audacity. Pirating is not the only way to go, so don’t encourage theft please.

  13. transcoding ruins audio quality, dipshit, and thats illegal anyway. just as much as piracy.

  14. I’ll also throw in my shameless pitch for e-music (no, I don’t work there either) — it’s reasonably priced, the artists get a large cut of the sale, you can redownload anything you’ve previously downloaded for free from anywhere, and the music is DRM free.

    That was enough for me.

    P.S. Cheese is good.

  16. “transcoding ruins audio quality, dipshit, and thats illegal anyway. just as much as piracy.”

    But at the very least its not stealing, so you’re not damaging anyone in any way. And the quality difference is negligible at best, considering that the music is already being sold (generally) at 192 kb MP3′s (also some software DRM removal software has no loss at all, on Audacity it probably will depending on the recording settings).

  17. Wow. Seriously man, I think this may or may not be as close as any of us will ever get to immortality. Kudos

  18. bachman said:
    “[transcoding is] not stealing, so you’re not damaging anyone in any way.”

    One could argue that if iTunes sells a DRM’ed song for $.99, or a DRM-free version of the same song for $1.49, you’re depriving them of the additional revenue.

    Personally, I’d just as soon buy from a place (like eMusic, or Amazon for the USA-ians) that sells DRM-free. Less hassle, indisputably legal, and it demonstrates demand for the superior product. In a perfect world, demand for DRM-free music would eventually lead to DRM-free games, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

    – A.
    And once you’ve bought your DRM-free tunes, don’t go messing it up by sharing them on Morpheus (or whatever the deuce you kids are using these days.)

  19. “One could argue that if iTunes sells a DRM’ed song for $.99, or a DRM-free version of the same song for $1.49, you’re depriving them of the additional revenue.”

    That’s definitely true, so there is a problem there. But I’m just saying, pirating isn’t the only way to get unlimited access to a song, and if the DRM is broken and restricting you from playing it the song then you should definitely be able to crunch it.

  22. Wow, good work man. Way to be noticed. At least you have braggin rights now. “Ya that’s me, I started that youtube audio preview thing, YA ME!”

  24. “And the quality difference is negligible at best, considering that the music is already being sold (generally) at 192 kb MP3’s (also some software DRM removal software has no loss at all, on Audacity it probably will depending on the recording settings).”

    Totally untrue. 192 kbps isn’t bad. Carving the file apart from lossless doesn’t necessarily hurt it much with decent bitrate. Switching it around once you’ve got it there is like trying to sculpt a another statue of the same size out of a previous statue instead of a new block of wood. Doesn’t work.

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  26. “Totally untrue. 192 kbps isn’t bad. Carving the file apart from lossless doesn’t necessarily hurt it much with decent bitrate. Switching it around once you’ve got it there is like trying to sculpt a another statue of the same size out of a previous statue instead of a new block of wood. Doesn’t work.”

    I meant that 192 kbps is good, so that even if it worsened the quality down to maybe the equivalent of 128 then it would still be fine. But they have pretty advanced methods out there for ensuring that the quality difference is small.

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  29. why do i have to leave name and i email its stupid because i know i gonna get an ass full of ads

  31. I just had to comment this one… Ever since I first saw your comics about YOUtube comments, I actually started to pay some attention to them, and you are absolutely correct, mister.. NOT ONE could ever be taken seriously!

    So, I’m here to congratulate you on your idea, which for sure made the YOUtube team think about what they were enabling….

    THANK YOU!

    Xana

    P.S.: I am really sorry if my writting sucks but, altough I have studied some english in school, it was a long time, and I am not in an english-speaking country. By the way: Portugal says HI!

  32. Pingback: dropsafe : xkcd » Blog Archive » Youtube Audio Preview

  33. Mas a maior parte de nós fala bem inglês, Xana. Devias esforçar-te para melhorar ;) Especialmente se és nerd o suficiente para ler XKCD!

  35. Wow. Randall Munroe is far more powerful than I ever imagined. Also, LOL @ the Portuguese convo. Ooo, I wonder how YouTube would speak an ‘@’ symbol…

  37. Dear Randall,
    That is amazing. I love you. Please add it here. There are too many “omg that is such a cpol thing that they asdded it to yourube cause you did it frist”. Fanboy/girl love only goes so far, Mr. Munroe.
    Please make your next comic about the suggestions you have received so youtube can fix itself again.
    I still love you,
    Sam
    P.S. That is actually a pretty good TTS. One of the best I’ve heard, really.

  38. what i really want to see is a forced spelling check. if it does not pass the basic grammar and dictionary test the comment will be rejected. and also some basic math tests to make sure the commentator has above average knowledge.

    if you don’t like my spelling please implement a spelling checker ;) the chapta can even be done by untrained drunk monkeys (well, this will filter out most likely 10% of the internet users).

  40. Hi! Love the comic!

    While you’re saving the internet from its poorly educated inhabitants, I was wondering if you might consider another topic…

    I figure Facebook (and probably other sites) could do with an anonymous tip function, labeled “third-person FAIL”, next to published status updates. People reading updates could let the poster know that “Joe is wondering what I will eat for lunch” makes Joe look uneducated.

    Together we can fight for grammatically correct social networking.

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  43. That is amazing. I went straight to youtube and I can only say that it is truly incredible. You have probably singlehandedly revolutionized the intersphere.

  45. Pingback: ALEYRAM.COM >> YouTube adds “Read Comment Aloud” feature from xkcd

  47. Brilliant news. I await the influx of youtube comments consisted of:

    “Oh no. Here comes the rolfcopter. dfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfe”

    Great work Randall.

  48. I’d love to hear it try and read the unintelligibly misspelled chat speak garbage comments. comnts wich r typd lyk thus. Ah maaan, I must go hurry to YouTube now and hear it read that back to me. Fwee~

  50. # Otto Says:
    It’s amazing that Randal wields such awesome power! But… will he use it for good, or for evil?

    I think neither — Randal is Chaotic Neutral, isn’t he?

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