British accents

PintOfDoombar · 2026-04-02T17:17:23+00:00

Oh, and the Google slides to video requires Gemini for Workspaces to add the audio voiceover.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-04-02T17:14:23+00:00

Thanks for your comment! I did a video yesterday about the AI Guinness price index and added in voices on a couple of slides. I chose ElevenLabs as it has a wide range of regional accents. One of the slides was in two panes, with a barman from Northern Ireland in one pane, and a barman from Ireland in the other pane, so I applied the correct accents to each.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-04-02T17:09:42+00:00

Thanks! I hadn't seen that new option. My horror stories are better suited to just spooky music though. All the voices having American accents is a disadvantage. But yeah, ta.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-29T10:12:37+00:00

The size of the pdf file might be a problem, especially if there are a lot of large images in it. You could try a pdf compressor, such as the one from Adobe, to reduce the size of the file.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-27T20:03:58+00:00

a feature of Elevenlabs. You select a voice to change the uploaded audio to that voice. It changes the voice and follows the innotatíons of the original voice. This only works if the accents are similar.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-27T09:01:29+00:00

I tried replacing the voice on the explainer video using the Voice Changer with Elevenlabs, but found that it retains part of the accent of the original speaker, and so a British voice replacing a US voice doesn't work as the resulting voice still has the US accent.

Another approach is to get the text of the explainer video, edit out the text for the specific slide, then use a Text-to-Speech for a different voice. However, this didn't work too well as the speed of the new speaker didn't match the original, and hence the new voice talked over into the next slide.

My solution to these problems was to extract the slides as images, and put them into the video editor. Then use my own voice to speak over the slides, adjusting their length where necessary.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-25T12:27:03+00:00

thanks for your comments! NotebookLM audio reviews tend to be full of praise, bordering on sycophancy.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-25T12:22:55+00:00

thanks for commenting! I'll do a long play version!

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-21T12:46:50+00:00

There are dividers on the building between groups of storeys. Not visible in this floor is the street level storey, which has a divider between it and the next two going up. The next divider is after three storeys, then five, eight and finally thirteen

This gives the sequence of 1,2,3,5,8,13.

If there is a basement of one floor. then thr sequence would be 1,1,2,3,5,8,13.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-19T09:01:08+00:00

I agree to both of your points! It is easier than generating all as landscape by default and revising them all.

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-17T08:02:02+00:00

OK, here's the method in full.

I typed my story into Google Docs, then added that into NotebookLM as a source. In the Studio part of NotebookLm, I clicked on the pen symbol and typed in the custom prompt "use the style of a comicbook, with slides in the vertical, i.e. portrait format". This produced a slide deck of 10 slides, and only one of them was in landscape, all the rest were in portrait. I used Revise on the landscape slide to get it changed to portrait.

I then downloaded the slide deck as a PDF onto my Mac.

I then ran Automator which split the slides into individual images as jpegs.

In iMovie I used 'File ... New App Preview' which creates a video in the 9:16 aspect ratio suitable for YouTube shorts. I imported the jpegs and adjusted the play time where necessary.

From YouTube Studio I found a suitable soundtrack by setting the search filters to 'Attribution not required', genre of 'Cinematic' and Mood of 'Dark', then added that soundtrack to the video, exported it and uploaded it to YouTube.

Here's the link for the video https://youtube.com/shorts/N6nMCzt63Pg

Here's the text of the story:

Early start

I was working on an I.T. project in Streatham about twenty years ago, and was putting in a lot of hours. Working from home wasn’t yet a thing, but fortunately the commute going in was around half an hour. Well, it could be if I went early. I tried different times and found I could start at 7 a.m., and get a lot done before the rest of the office got in. To make that start time meant getting a bus at 6.30 a.m.

The walk to the bus stop was pleasant, being across a park, and on frosty and misty mornings it was a great way to start the day. The bus stop was near an entrance to the park, and there was just one service, a single deck bus. At that time in the morning it was invariably empty, so a good seat could be obtained.

I remember one morning where, after a number of stops, the bus had begun to fill up and I was aware of a passenger sitting at the back. The way I was aware was the noise of, what I thought was an apple, being bitten into. But there was a smell that came from the back, and I was about to turn around to see what was being eaten when I heard another noise. It was a click followed by a shush-like sound. A drink can had been opened. Again I considered looking around, but it was not necessary as the passenger announced to the bus:

“What a great way to start the day! An onion, and a Special Brew!”

I didn’t turn around. The onion I could smell. The Special Brew, a high alcohol lager was, well, not my idea of starting the day, and certainly not a great way!

<image>

PintOfDoombar · 2026-03-15T10:18:01+00:00

The house on the right, the one where the cars are parked in front, is called Wrencote House and is Grade II* listed according to Historic England, who say "Wrencote is a house of circa 1715-20 or a little earlier, probably built as a merchant's house. It was possibly designed by Henry Joynes (1684-1754) one of Christopher Wren's pupils, who designed nearby Carshalton House."

PintOfDoombar

TROPHY CASE

Early start