| --- |
| pretty_name: qb-audio |
| language: |
| - en |
| license: other |
| license_name: community-question-content |
| license_link: https://www.qbreader.org/ |
| tags: |
| - audio |
| - text-to-speech |
| - quizbowl |
| - trivia |
| --- |
| |
| # qb-audio — read-aloud audio for quizbowl questions |
|
|
| TTS read-aloud recordings of quizbowl questions from |
| [qbreader](https://www.qbreader.org/), one Opus file per tossup / bonus. |
| Built so any quizbowl app can add listening practice over plain HTTP — no |
| install, no API key. **Generation is in progress (July 2026); the dataset |
| grows as the run proceeds.** |
|
|
| ## Layout |
|
|
| - `tossups/{qid[-2:]}/{qid}.opus`, `bonuses/{qid[-2:]}/{qid}.opus` — audio, |
| Opus 24 kHz mono. `qid` is the question's qbreader `_id`; files shard by |
| its last two hex characters. |
| - `tossups/{qid[-2:]}/{qid}.json`, `bonuses/...` — chunk-offset sidecar: |
| `{"v": 1, "chunks": [[start_s, end_s], ...], "texts": ["chunk text", ...]}`. |
| Synthesis is per-chunk, so cumulative chunk durations map audio time to |
| text position (for buzz points, reveal pacing). |
| - `audio_index.json` — manifest: `{"tossups": [qid, ...], "bonuses": [qid, |
| ...]}`, the questions that have audio. Fetch this first and restrict your |
| queue to it. |
|
|
| The spoken text is a cleaned form of the question text (pronunciation |
| guides applied, markup and moderator directives stripped) — the sidecar |
| `texts` are exactly what the audio says. |
|
|
| ## How it was made |
|
|
| Synthesized with [Chatterbox TTS](https://github.com/resemble-ai/chatterbox) |
| (MIT, Resemble AI) on a single RTX 4090, with an ASR verification gate |
| (OpenAI [Whisper](https://github.com/openai/whisper), MIT) that re-rolls |
| clipped or runaway generations. Pipeline code is open source under the |
| [qbsuite](https://github.com/qbsuite) org (MIT). |
|
|
| ## Credits and licensing |
|
|
| - **Question text** was written by the packet authors and editors of the |
| respective tournaments and reaches this dataset via |
| [qbreader](https://www.qbreader.org/), which distributes the community |
| question archive. The audio is a synthesized reading of that text; |
| rights in the underlying questions remain with their authors. |
| - The dataset is shared for study and practice in line with quizbowl |
| community norms, the same basis on which the text archive circulates. It |
| is not licensed for uses beyond that (the `other` license tag above |
| reflects this — there is no blanket open-content license to grant). |
| - **Audio synthesis**: Chatterbox TTS (MIT © Resemble AI). QA: Whisper |
| (MIT © OpenAI). |
|
|
| If you are an author or editor of included questions and want your |
| material removed, open an issue on any [qbsuite](https://github.com/qbsuite) |
| repo or use the dataset's community tab and it will be taken down. |
|
|
