LipVoicer: Generating High-Quality and Intelligible Speech from Silent Videos Using Lip Reading and Diffusion Models

Core Concepts

LipVoicer is a novel method that generates high-quality and intelligible speech from silent videos by leveraging a lip-reading model to guide a diffusion-based speech generation model.

Abstract

LipVoicer is a novel approach for generating high-quality and intelligible speech from silent videos. It consists of three main components:

MelGen: A conditional denoising diffusion probabilistic model (DDPM) that learns to generate a mel-spectrogram from the input video. MelGen is trained using classifier-free guidance.

Lip-reading model: A pre-trained lip-reading network that infers the most likely text from the silent video.

ASR-based guidance: An ASR system that anchors the generated mel-spectrogram to the text predicted by the lip-reader using classifier guidance.

The key innovation of LipVoicer is the use of the text modality, inferred from the lip-reading model, to guide the speech generation process at inference time. This helps alleviate the ambiguities inherent in lip motion and ensures that the generated speech aligns with the spoken text.
LipVoicer is evaluated on the challenging LRS2 and LRS3 datasets, which contain in-the-wild videos with diverse speakers, accents, and speaking styles. The results show that LipVoicer outperforms multiple recent lip-to-speech baselines in terms of intelligibility, naturalness, quality, and synchronization, as measured by both objective metrics and human evaluation.

Stats

The ground truth speech has a word error rate (WER) of 1.5% on LRS2 and 1.0% on LRS3.
LipVoicer achieves a WER of 17.8% on LRS2 and 21.4% on LRS3, significantly outperforming the baselines.
LipVoicer scores 0.91 on STOI-Net and 2.89 on DNSMOS for LRS2, and 0.92 on STOI-Net and 3.11 on DNSMOS for LRS3.

Quotes

"LipVoicer outperforms multiple recent lip-to-speech baselines in terms of intelligibility, naturalness, quality, and synchronization, as measured by both objective metrics and human evaluation."
"The key innovation of LipVoicer is the use of the text modality, inferred from the lip-reading model, to guide the speech generation process at inference time."

Key Insights Distilled From

LipVoicer

by Yochai Yemin... at arxiv.org 03-29-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.03258.pdf

Deeper Inquiries

How can the performance of LipVoicer be further improved by using more advanced lip-reading and ASR models

To enhance the performance of LipVoicer, utilizing more advanced lip-reading and ASR models can be highly beneficial. Advanced lip-reading models with improved accuracy and robustness can provide more precise transcriptions of the spoken text from the silent videos. This accuracy is crucial for guiding the generation of natural audio by LipVoicer. By using state-of-the-art lip-reading models that are trained on diverse datasets and have advanced architectures, LipVoicer can benefit from more accurate and context-aware transcriptions, leading to better alignment between the generated speech and the lip movements in the video.
Similarly, employing advanced ASR models can further improve the quality of the generated speech. These models can provide more accurate and contextually relevant guidance during the generation process, ensuring that the generated speech closely matches the predicted text. Advanced ASR models with enhanced language understanding capabilities, robustness to accents, and improved speech recognition accuracy can significantly enhance the overall performance of LipVoicer by producing more natural and intelligible speech outputs.
By integrating cutting-edge lip-reading and ASR models into the LipVoicer framework, the system can leverage the latest advancements in speech recognition technology to achieve higher accuracy, better synchronization, and improved overall performance in generating speech from silent videos.

What are the potential risks and ethical considerations of using a system like LipVoicer to generate speech from silent videos

Using a system like LipVoicer to generate speech from silent videos raises several potential risks and ethical considerations. One major concern is the potential for misuse or manipulation of the generated speech. As LipVoicer can create realistic and synchronized speech from silent videos, there is a risk that bad actors could use the system to create fake audio content, leading to misinformation, fraud, or other malicious activities. This could have serious consequences, such as spreading false information, impersonating individuals, or creating deepfake content.
Another ethical consideration is the privacy implications of using LipVoicer. Generating speech from silent videos may involve processing personal or sensitive information without the consent of the individuals in the videos. This raises concerns about privacy violations and the unauthorized use of personal data for audio synthesis purposes.
Furthermore, there are implications for voice cloning and identity theft. LipVoicer's ability to generate speech that mimics the voice of a specific individual could be exploited for malicious purposes, such as impersonating someone for fraudulent activities or creating fake audio evidence.
To address these risks and ethical considerations, it is essential to implement robust security measures, obtain proper consent for using personal data, and raise awareness about the potential misuse of audio synthesis technologies like LipVoicer. Additionally, developing and adhering to ethical guidelines and regulations for the responsible use of such systems is crucial to mitigate potential harms and safeguard against misuse.

How could the modular design of LipVoicer be leveraged to enable cross-lingual or cross-domain lip-to-speech generation

The modular design of LipVoicer offers opportunities for cross-lingual and cross-domain lip-to-speech generation by enabling the seamless integration of different components and models tailored to specific languages or domains. Here are some ways the modular design can be leveraged for cross-lingual and cross-domain applications:

Language Adaptation: By incorporating language-specific lip-reading models and ASR systems into LipVoicer, the system can be adapted to work with different languages. This allows for the generation of speech from silent videos in multiple languages, catering to diverse linguistic contexts and audiences.

Domain-Specific Customization: The modular design of LipVoicer facilitates the integration of domain-specific models and datasets. For example, by training the system on domain-specific data, such as medical or legal videos, LipVoicer can generate speech tailored to specific domains with specialized vocabulary and terminology.

Transfer Learning: Leveraging transfer learning techniques, LipVoicer can transfer knowledge and features learned from one domain or language to another. This enables the system to adapt and generalize across different domains or languages, reducing the need for extensive training data in each specific domain.

Multi-Modal Integration: LipVoicer's modular architecture allows for the integration of additional modalities, such as facial expressions or gestures, to enhance the speech generation process. By incorporating multi-modal information, LipVoicer can generate more contextually rich and expressive speech outputs.

Overall, the modular design of LipVoicer provides flexibility and scalability for adapting the system to various languages, domains, and modalities, making it versatile for cross-lingual and cross-domain lip-to-speech generation applications.