To stay in business, media enterprises today needs to deliver high quality content quickly, consistently, and in accessible formats. However, producing high‑quality audio content comes with several challenges. For instance:
- Hiring voice artists
- Scheduling studio appointments
- Paying per recording/edit
- Managing re‑recordings if anything changes
- And, generating content in multiple languages
Tackling all these challenges is not easy, since it involves a lot of manual labor & capital. Hence, content creation becomes unsustainable at large scale.
Amazon Polly solves many of these challenges by providing a versatile text‑to‑speech (TTS) service, designed to transform written text into natural‑sounding audio. Whether we need a simple narration, long‑form content, or highly expressive speech, Amazon Polly provides everything under one roof.
In this blog, we’ll explore Amazon Polly (AWS’s text‑to‑speech (TTS) managed service), using the AWS Console. We’ll experiment with Polly’s various voices and SSML features too.
Exploring Amazon Polly
To explore Amazon Polly, we need to login to AWS Management console. Once logged in, search for Amazon Polly service.
After navigating to Amazon Polly console, we can start experimenting with it by clicking on Try Polly.
Option 1: Standard Voice
This option produces a natural-sounding speech. Since, it is the least expensive option available in Amazon Polly. Hence, it might sound a little bit robotic. For instance, a children’s poem is narrated in a natural but robotic voice.
Option 2: Neural Voice
To produce a more natural and human-like speech than the Standard Voice, we can select Neural option. Of course this option is little bit more expensive than the Standard option. However the speech is more humane. For instance, the same poem sounds more humane with the Neural option.
Option 3: Long Form Voice
This option produces the most natural and human-like speech among all the options available in Amazon Polly. It generates speech with all human-like notions like emphasis, pause, excitement, etc. However, it is the most expensive option too. Hence, this option is ideal for news narration, making training content, or marketing campaigns. For instance, the same poem will sound totally different now.
Note: The Long Form speech option might not be available in other AWS regions than us-east-1. Hence, before opting for this option, please confirm the region you are working in and the option’s availability.
Option 4: Experimenting with SSML
Along with standardized options, Amazon Polly also supports, SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) to control various aspects of human voice. Like:
- Breathing sound effects
- Pauses
- Emphasis
- Reading pace (fast/slow)
- And many more…
For instance, the poem can be recited with different notions, like high volume to express excitement or slow rate for denoting a whisper.
A point to take care here is, all SSML tags might not be supported by Amazon Polly. To look for the latest info on supported tags we can visit, Amazon Polly Supported SSML tags documentation.
Option 5: Saving Output to S3
Amazon Polly allows us to listen to speech before finalizing it, saving it directly on any device, and export the speech to Amazon S3 for further processing. For instance, the final speech is saved to S3.
- Select Save to S3 and provide S3 Bucket details
- Check S3 Synthesis Tasks’ status
- Once, task is complete we can see the audio (speech) saved to S3.
In-Summary
At last, we know what Amazon Polly offers. Also, we came to know how we can perform various tasks in Amazon Polly to convert Text-to-Speech (TTS). Like:
- Multiple voice engines (Standard, Long‑form, Neural)
- High‑quality, natural TTS
- Advanced SSML support
- Customizable pronunciation
- Easy console previews
Whether we need to create training material, conduct UI narration, or generate marketing content, Amazon Polly provides the scalability and adaptability required to produce the most human‑like speech. With its blend of simplicity and depth, Amazon Polly remains one of AWS’s most capable services for bringing text to life.
Hopefully you found this blog insightful. In case you want to share your thoughts, please do so via comments 🙂