Amazon Polly

Amazon Polly is the opposite of Amazon Transcribe.
Definition:
- This service allows you to turn text into lifelike speech using deep learning and enables you to create applications that will talk.
For example, if you write "Hi, my name is Stephane, and this is a demo of Amazon Polly," then the speech is going to be generated for you by Amazon Polly.

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Advanced Features

Polly has several advanced features that may appear in the exam:

Lexicons

you Define how to read certain pieces of text
Example: you may Write "AWS" but want Polly to pronounce "Amazon Web Services"
Example: you may Write "W3C" but want Polly to say "World Wide Web Consortium"

SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)

Markups that indicate how your text should be pronounced
Example: "Hello" + break + "how are you?" will say "Hello," then have a long break, then "how are you?"
It won't say "Hello, break, how are you?" – it understands the markup
Capabilities include:
- Whispering
- Pronunciation control
- Abbreviation handling
- Word emphasis

SSML Example

Voice Engines

Multiple voice engines available, from most historical to newest:

Neural
Standard
Long-form
Generative

The newest engines have very good human-like voices.

Speech Marks

Provides information about where audio elements occur
Shows where a word or sentence starts or ends in the audio
Polly gives you both the audio and the speech marks
Very helpful for:
- Lip-syncing
- Highlighting words as they are spoken