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https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas

aeneas is a Python/C library and a set of tools to automagically synchronize audio and text (aka forced alignment)
https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas

alignment audio cli dtw espeak espeak-ng festival ffmpeg forced-alignment linux macos nlp python smil speech srt text text-to-speech tts windows

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aeneas is a Python/C library and a set of tools to automagically synchronize audio and text (aka forced alignment)

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# aeneas



**aeneas** is a Python/C library and a set of tools to automagically synchronize audio and text (aka forced alignment).



* Version: 1.7.3

* Date: 2017-03-15

* Developed by: [ReadBeyond](http://www.readbeyond.it/)

* Lead Developer: [Alberto Pettarin](http://www.albertopettarin.it/)

* License: the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPL v3)

* Contact: [aeneas@readbeyond.it](mailto:aeneas@readbeyond.it)

* Quick Links: [Home](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/) - [GitHub](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/) - [PyPI](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/aeneas/) - [Docs](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/) - [Tutorial](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/clitutorial.html) - [Benchmark](https://readbeyond.github.io/aeneas-benchmark/) - [Mailing List](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/aeneas-forced-alignment) - [Web App](http://aeneasweb.org)



## Goal



**aeneas** automatically generates a **synchronization map**

between a list of text fragments

and an audio file containing the narration of the text.

In computer science this task is known as

(automatically computing a) **forced alignment**.



For example, given

[this text file](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/readbeyond/aeneas/master/aeneas/tests/res/container/job/assets/p001.xhtml)

and

[this audio file](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/readbeyond/aeneas/master/aeneas/tests/res/container/job/assets/p001.mp3),

**aeneas** determines, for each fragment, the corresponding time interval in the audio file:



```

1                                                     => [00:00:00.000, 00:00:02.640]

From fairest creatures we desire increase,            => [00:00:02.640, 00:00:05.880]

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,           => [00:00:05.880, 00:00:09.240]

But as the riper should by time decease,              => [00:00:09.240, 00:00:11.920]

His tender heir might bear his memory:                => [00:00:11.920, 00:00:15.280]

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,         => [00:00:15.280, 00:00:18.800]

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, => [00:00:18.800, 00:00:22.760]

Making a famine where abundance lies,                 => [00:00:22.760, 00:00:25.680]

Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:        => [00:00:25.680, 00:00:31.240]

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,         => [00:00:31.240, 00:00:34.400]

And only herald to the gaudy spring,                  => [00:00:34.400, 00:00:36.920]

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,             => [00:00:36.920, 00:00:40.640]

And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:          => [00:00:40.640, 00:00:43.640]

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,              => [00:00:43.640, 00:00:48.080]

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.        => [00:00:48.080, 00:00:53.240]

```



![Waveform with aligned labels, detail](wiki/align.png)



This synchronization map can be output to file

in several formats, depending on its application:



* research: Audacity (AUD), ELAN (EAF), TextGrid;

* digital publishing: SMIL for EPUB 3;

* closed captioning: SubRip (SRT), SubViewer (SBV/SUB), TTML, WebVTT (VTT);

* Web: JSON;

* further processing: CSV, SSV, TSV, TXT, XML.



## System Requirements, Supported Platforms and Installation



### System Requirements



1. a reasonably recent machine (recommended 4 GB RAM, 2 GHz 64bit CPU)

2. [Python](https://python.org/) 2.7 (Linux, OS X, Windows) or 3.5 or later (Linux, OS X)

3. [FFmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/)

4. [eSpeak](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/)

5. Python packages `BeautifulSoup4`, `lxml`, and `numpy`

6. Python headers to compile the Python C/C++ extensions (optional but strongly recommended)

7. A shell supporting UTF-8 (optional but strongly recommended)



### Supported Platforms



**aeneas** has been developed and tested on **Debian 64bit**,

with **Python 2.7** and **Python 3.5**,

which are the **only supported platforms** at the moment.

Nevertheless, **aeneas** has been confirmed to work on

other Linux distributions, Mac OS X, and Windows.

See the

[PLATFORMS file](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/PLATFORMS.md)

for details.



If installing **aeneas** natively on your OS proves difficult,

you are strongly encouraged to use

[aeneas-vagrant](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas-vagrant),

which provides **aeneas** inside a virtualized Debian image

running under

[VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/)

and

[Vagrant](http://www.vagrantup.com/),

which can be installed on any modern OS (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows).



### Installation



All-in-one installers are available for Mac OS X and Windows,

and a Bash script for deb-based Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu)

is provided in this repository.

It is also possible to download a VirtualBox+Vagrant virtual machine.

Please see the

[INSTALL file](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/INSTALL.md)

for detailed, step-by-step installation procedures for different operating systems.



The generic OS-independent procedure is simple:



1. **Install**

   [Python](https://python.org/) (2.7.x preferred),

   [FFmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/), and

   [eSpeak](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/)



2. Make sure the following **executables** can be called from your **shell**:

   `espeak`, `ffmpeg`, `ffprobe`, `pip`, and `python`



3. First install `numpy` with `pip` and then `aeneas` (this order is important):



    ```bash

    pip install numpy

    pip install aeneas

    ```



4. To **check** whether you installed **aeneas** correctly, run:



   ```bash

    python -m aeneas.diagnostics

    ```



## Usage



1. Run without arguments to get the **usage message**:



    ```bash

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_job

    ```



    You can also get a list of **live examples**

    that you can immediately run on your machine

    thanks to the included files:



    ```bash

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task --examples

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task --examples-all

    ```



2. To **compute a synchronization map** `map.json` for a pair

   (`audio.mp3`, `text.txt` in

   [plain](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/textfile.html#aeneas.textfile.TextFileFormat.PLAIN)

   text format), you can run:



    ```bash

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task \

        audio.mp3 \

        text.txt \

        "task_language=eng|os_task_file_format=json|is_text_type=plain" \

        map.json

    ```



   (The command has been split into lines with `\` for visual clarity;

   in production you can have the entire command on a single line

   and/or you can use shell variables.)



   To **compute a synchronization map** `map.smil` for a pair

   (`audio.mp3`,

   [page.xhtml](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/textfile.html#aeneas.textfile.TextFileFormat.UNPARSED)

   containing fragments marked by `id` attributes like `f001`),

   you can run:



    ```bash

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task \

        audio.mp3 \

        page.xhtml \

        "task_language=eng|os_task_file_format=smil|os_task_file_smil_audio_ref=audio.mp3|os_task_file_smil_page_ref=page.xhtml|is_text_type=unparsed|is_text_unparsed_id_regex=f[0-9]+|is_text_unparsed_id_sort=numeric" \

        map.smil

    ```



   As you can see, the third argument (the _configuration string_)

   specifies the parameters controlling the I/O formats

   and the processing options for the task.

   Consult the

   [documentation](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/)

   for details.



3. If you have several tasks to process,

   you can create a **job container**

   to batch process them:



    ```bash

    python -m aeneas.tools.execute_job job.zip output_directory

    ```



   File `job.zip` should contain a `config.txt` or `config.xml`

   configuration file, providing **aeneas**

   with all the information needed to parse the input assets

   and format the output sync map files.

   Consult the

   [documentation](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/)

   for details.



The

[documentation](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/)

contains a highly suggested

[tutorial](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/clitutorial.html)

which explains how to use the built-in command line tools.



## Documentation and Support



* Documentation:

  [http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/)

* Command line tools tutorial:

  [http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/clitutorial.html](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/clitutorial.html)

* Library tutorial:

  [http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/libtutorial.html](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/libtutorial.html)

* Old, verbose tutorial:

  [A Practical Introduction To The aeneas Package](http://www.albertopettarin.it/blog/2015/05/21/a-practical-introduction-to-the-aeneas-package.html)

* Mailing list:

  [https://groups.google.com/d/forum/aeneas-forced-alignment](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/aeneas-forced-alignment)

* Changelog:

  [http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/changelog.html](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/changelog.html)

* High level description of how aeneas works:

  [HOWITWORKS](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/HOWITWORKS.md)

* Development history:

  [HISTORY](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/HISTORY.md)

* Testing:

  [TESTING](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/TESTING.md)

* Benchmark suite:

  [https://readbeyond.github.io/aeneas-benchmark/](https://readbeyond.github.io/aeneas-benchmark/)



## Supported Features



* Input text files in `parsed`, `plain`, `subtitles`, or `unparsed` (XML) format

* Multilevel input text files in `mplain` and `munparsed` (XML) format

* Text extraction from XML (e.g., XHTML) files using `id` and `class` attributes

* Arbitrary text fragment granularity (single word, subphrase, phrase, paragraph, etc.)

* Input audio file formats: all those readable by `ffmpeg`

* Output sync map formats: AUD, CSV, EAF, JSON, SMIL, SRT, SSV, SUB, TEXTGRID, TSV, TTML, TXT, VTT, XML

* Confirmed working on 38 languages: AFR, ARA, BUL, CAT, CYM, CES, DAN, DEU, ELL, ENG, EPO, EST, FAS, FIN, FRA, GLE, GRC, HRV, HUN, ISL, ITA, JPN, LAT, LAV, LIT, NLD, NOR, RON, RUS, POL, POR, SLK, SPA, SRP, SWA, SWE, TUR, UKR

* MFCC and DTW computed via Python C extensions to reduce the processing time

* Several built-in TTS engine wrappers: AWS Polly TTS API, eSpeak (default), eSpeak-ng, Festival, MacOS (via say), Nuance TTS API

* Default TTS (eSpeak) called via a Python C extension for fast audio synthesis

* Possibility of running a custom, user-provided TTS engine Python wrapper (e.g., included example for speect)

* Batch processing of multiple audio/text pairs

* Download audio from a YouTube video

* In multilevel mode, recursive alignment from paragraph to sentence to word level

* In multilevel mode, MFCC resolution, MFCC masking, DTW margin, and TTS engine can be specified for each level independently

* Robust against misspelled/mispronounced words, local rearrangements of words, background noise/sporadic spikes

* Adjustable splitting times, including a max character/second constraint for CC applications

* Automated detection of audio head/tail

* Output an HTML file for fine tuning the sync map manually (`finetuneas` project)

* Execution parameters tunable at runtime

* Code suitable for Web app deployment (e.g., on-demand cloud computing instances)

* Extensive test suite including 1,200+ unit/integration/performance tests, that run and must pass before each release



## Limitations and Missing Features



* Audio should match the text: large portions of spurious text or audio might produce a wrong sync map

* Audio is assumed to be spoken: not suitable for song captioning, YMMV for CC applications

* No protection against memory swapping: be sure your amount of RAM is adequate for the maximum duration of a single audio file (e.g., 4 GB RAM => max 2h audio; 16 GB RAM => max 10h audio)

* [Open issues](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/issues)



### A Note on Word-Level Alignment



A significant number of users runs **aeneas** to align audio and text

at word-level (i.e., each fragment is a word).

Although **aeneas** was not designed with word-level alignment in mind

and the results might be inferior to

[ASR-based forced aligners](https://github.com/pettarin/forced-alignment-tools)

for languages with good ASR models,

**aeneas** offers some options to improve

the quality of the alignment at word-level:



* multilevel text (since v1.5.1),

* MFCC nonspeech masking (since v1.7.0, disabled by default),

* use better TTS engines, like Festival or AWS/Nuance TTS API (since v1.5.0).



If you use the ``aeneas.tools.execute_task`` command line tool,

you can add ``--presets-word`` switch to enable MFCC nonspeech masking, for example:



```bash

$ python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task --example-words --presets-word

$ python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task --example-words-multilevel --presets-word

```



If you use **aeneas** as a library, just set the appropriate

``RuntimeConfiguration`` parameters.

Please see the

[command line tutorial](http://www.readbeyond.it/aeneas/docs/clitutorial.html)

for details.



## License



**aeneas** is released under the terms of the

GNU Affero General Public License Version 3.

See the

[LICENSE file](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/LICENSE) for details.



Licenses for third party code and files included in **aeneas**

can be found in the

[licenses](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/licenses/README.md) directory.



No copy rights were harmed in the making of this project.



## Supporting and Contributing



### Sponsors



* **July 2015**: [Michele Gianella](https://plus.google.com/+michelegianella/about) generously supported the development of the boundary adjustment code (v1.0.4)



* **August 2015**: [Michele Gianella](https://plus.google.com/+michelegianella/about) partially sponsored the port of the MFCC/DTW code to C (v1.1.0)



* **September 2015**: friends in West Africa partially sponsored the development of the head/tail detection code (v1.2.0)



* **October 2015**: an anonymous donation sponsored the development of the "YouTube downloader" option (v1.3.0)



* **April 2016**: the Fruch Foundation kindly sponsored the development and documentation of v1.5.0



* **December 2016**: the [Centro Internazionale Del Libro Parlato "Adriano Sernagiotto"](http://www.libroparlato.org/) (Feltre, Italy) partially sponsored the development of the v1.7 series



### Supporting



Would you like supporting the development of **aeneas**?



I accept sponsorships to



* fix bugs,

* add new features,

* improve the quality and the performance of the code,

* port the code to other languages/platforms, and

* improve the documentation.



Feel free to

[get in touch](mailto:aeneas@readbeyond.it).



### Contributing



If you think you found a bug

or you have a feature request,

please use the

[GitHub issue tracker](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/issues)

to submit it.



If you want to ask a question

about using **aeneas**,

your best option consists in sending an email to the

[mailing list](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/aeneas-forced-alignment).



Finally, code contributions are welcome!

Please refer to the

[Code Contribution Guide](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/blob/master/wiki/CONTRIBUTING.md)

for details about the branch policies and the code style to follow.



## Acknowledgments



Many thanks to **Nicola Montecchio**,

who suggested using MFCCs and DTW,

and co-developed the first experimental code

for aligning audio and text.



**Paolo Bertasi**, who developed the

APIs and Web application for ReadBeyond Sync,

helped shaping the structure of this package

for its asynchronous usage.



**Chris Hubbard** prepared the files for

packaging aeneas as a Debian/Ubuntu `.deb`.



**Daniel Bair** prepared the `brew` formula

for installing **aeneas** and its dependencies on Mac OS X.



**Daniel Bair**, **Chris Hubbard**, and **Richard Margetts**

packaged the installers for Mac OS X and Windows.



**Firat Ozdemir** contributed the `finetuneas`

HTML/JS code for fine tuning sync maps in the browser.



**Willem van der Walt** contributed the code snippet

to output a sync map in TextGrid format.



**Chris Vaughn** contributed the MacOS TTS wrapper.



All the mighty

[GitHub contributors](https://github.com/readbeyond/aeneas/graphs/contributors),

and the members of the

[Google Group](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/aeneas-forced-alignment).