Say it, then play it.
Gracenote MediaVOCS™ lets users enjoy their music collections using voice commands. With MediaVOCS, Gracenote applies its expertise in music recognition, navigation and automatic playlist creation to speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) technology. Device manufacturers can quickly deploy advanced speech-based media control features in a variety of digital devices, and MediaVOCS-enabled products provide music fans with hands-free access to their entire music collections in the car, at home, or on the go.
Pronunciation and Phonetics
ASR and TTS are limited when it comes to music. While ASR and TTS technologies have been longstanding well-developed parts of the digital landscape, neither ASR or TTS are designed to address the complexities of music. It's difficult for these technologies to recognize artist names, album names, track titles, and especially nicknames or alternate pronunciations. MediaVOCS addresses the limitations of existing ASR and TTS solutions by using a proprietary database of phonetic transcriptions for official and alternate artist, album, and track names. Standard speech technologies cannot consistently recognize or pronounce common artist, album, and track names. These often contain a variety of non-standard terms, including multiethnic names, abbreviations, nicknames, and invented words that defy the default pronunciation and language rules built into these systems.
Finding the Music
When integrated with the Gracenote Media Management System, MediaVOCS enables voice commands and enables an alternative way to use music devices. For example, traditional graphical user interfaces in devices that have small displays and limited manual control options become impractical when scrolling for an artist or an album in a 5,000-song collection while driving your car.
MediaVOCS enables music consumers to use voice commands to:
- Instantly navigate to an artist, album, or track
- Play any individual artist, album or song in a collection, just by saying its name
- Create new instant mixes on-the-fly
- Create More Like This™ instant playlists to stay in the mood of the song currently playing
- Describe any combination of qualities of the music they want to hear in natural language - such as "60's Detroit Soul" to generate new "On-The-Fly" mixes
- Get information on artists and albums
- Get more information on a new song currently playing by simply asking, "What is this?"
Phonetic Transcription Data
MediaVOCS provides the essential and critical phonetic transcription data required to not only recognize and pronounce music names and terms correctly, but also to recognize common user mispronunciations:
- Artist names: "Sade" (pronounced "shah-DAY"), "Björk" (pronounced "bee-YORK"), 311 (pronounced "three-eleven", not "three-one-one"); "Aaliyah" (pronounced "Uh-LEE-uh"); "Chic" (pronounced "sheek")
- Album and song titles: "Aja" (pronounced "A-zjyah"), "808 State" (pronounced "eight-oh-eight state"), "The Girl from Ipanema" (the last word pronounced "ee-puh-NEE-muh").
- Genre names: Merengue (pronounced "muh-RANG-gay")
Phonetic Variants
Music fans from around the world have their own way of pronouncing a band or artist's name. Phonetic variants enable recognition of a wide range of pronunciations.
- Artist names: Gloria Estefan (alternate pronunciations "eh-STAY-fan" or "EH-stah-fan")
- Album and song titles: D'yer Mak'er ("dja-MAY-ka" or "DI-yer-MAK-er");
- Genre names: Quebecois ("ke-be-KWAH" or "KWE-be-koy").
Additional Artist, Album, and Track Alternate Names
Elvis Presley is known by more names than only Elvis Presley. He's also "The King". MediaVOCS accounts for many nicknames and aliases coined for iconic artists and bands.
- Artist Nicknames: "The Fab Four" (The Beatles), "The King" (Elvis Presley), "Ol' Blue Eyes" (Frank Sinatra), "The Stones" (The Rolling Stones)
- Artist Short Names: "Dylan" (Bob Dylan), "Aretha" (Aretha Franklin), "Mozart" (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
- Artist Name Abbreviations: "CCR" (Creedence Clearwater Revival), "BTO" (Bachman Turner Overdrive)
- Album Title Nicknames: "Zep Four", "Zoso", "Black Dog", and "Runes" (for the untitled fourth Led Zeppelin album), "The White Album" (The Beatles self-titled album).
- Track Title Nicknames: "Chestnuts Roasting Over an Open Fire" (for "The Christmas Song", "N.I.B." (for the Black Sabbath song "Nativity in Black")
Enhanced Voice Commands to Manage, Enjoy, and Discover music
In just a few words you can, play your favorite artis, play your favorite album, or even create an entire automatic playlist to fit your mood. MediaVOCS works with Gracenote MusicID®, Playlist™, Playlist Plus™, and Link™ to enable voice control of the most popular Gracenote functionality.
MusicID
- Identification: "What is This?" "Artist Name," "Album Name," or "What Year Is This From?"
- Playback: "Play Artist 'Bowie'," "Play Song 'Fame'," "Pause," or "Repeat"
Playlist and Playlist Plus
- Automatic Playlist: "More Like This," "More Like This Artist," "More From This Place," "More From This Year," "Play 50's Jazz," or "Play Female Duos"
Link
- Link Services: "Buy Ringtone," "Read Review," "Download Album," "Buy Ticket"
Navigation
- "Browse Songs From 1982," "Browse French Artists," or "Browse Blues Artists"