/changelog-video

Script + Voice: the two-layer contract

The script is the single source of truth for BOTH the VO and the captions, written as token lines. The VO reads the spoken layer; captions render the display layer. This is a hard quality gate: a caption showing "jay-sawn" or a VO saying "juh-son" ("JSON" read literally) are both build failures.

Register (how it should sound)

• Conversational, not release-notes. "The big one this week —" beats "Theme 1:". Contractions welcome. Second person allowed ("your clips").
• Informational, never salesy; no superlatives the changelog doesn't earn.
• One breath per beat: sentences ≤ ~14 words; let punctuation pace the read.
• Numbers with meaning stay ("fifteen releases"); commit hashes, PR numbers, and version micro-detail are never spoken.
• Open with the week + the marquee, close with the digest pointer ("See everything at hyperframes dot heygen dot com").
• Teach the simple command. When a feature has a one-line invocation (a slash command, a CLI one-liner), the script says it verbatim ("start your prompt with /figma…") and the mock shows it being typed — the command is the visible CAUSE of the result. Slash commands speak as "slash <name>", caption as /name.

Token-line format (script-tokens.json)

{
  "lines": [
    {
      "id": "l1",
      "tokens": ["This", "week", "at", "HyperFrames,", { "display": "JSON", "spoken": "jay-sawn" }]
    }
  ]
}

• A bare string = display and spoken identical.
• An object = the layers diverge. display keeps standard spelling AND the punctuation captions should show; spoken is what the TTS reads.
• One line = one caption phrase (≤ ~40 chars of display text). Line grouping is an authoring decision made here, not downstream.
• Build vo-spoken.txt by joining every token's spoken form with spaces, lines joined into sentences/paragraphs as punctuated.

Phonetics rules (ElevenLabs-style best practices, plain-text)

HeyGen TTS takes plain text (no SSML), so pronunciation is controlled by spelling, hyphens, and spacing:

1. Initialisms (each letter said): space or hyphen the letters — CLI → "C L I", CDP → "C D P", API → "A P I".
2. Acronyms said as words: respell phonetically — JSON → "jay-sawn", GSAP → "jee-sap".
3. Mixed / pronounceable compounds: hyphenated LOWERCASE phonetics, one fluid run — ffmpeg → "ff-mpeg" (ear-tested; the TTS reads "ff" as a fluid "eff-eff"), WebM → "web em", OAuth → "oh-auth". Never spaced capitals here: the TTS reads spaced caps as isolated letter names with hard stops ("F F em-peg" comes out "eff… eff… em-peg"). Reserve spaced capitals for TRUE initialisms (CLI, API) where a deliberate letter-by-letter read is the goal. When candidates are close, generate A/B takes of the real sentence and let the user pick by ear.
4. Versions/numbers: expand — v0.7.36 → "version zero point seven point thirty-six" (usually: don't speak versions at all), 1080×1080 → "ten-eighty by ten-eighty".
5. URLs: hyperframes.heygen.com → "hyperframes dot hey-jen dot com".
6. Filenames/extensions: .mp4 → "dot em pee four" — or rephrase so the extension isn't spoken.
7. Emphasis/pauses: commas and em-dashes, never caps. Ellipses are unreliable in TTS — use an em-dash.

The shared vocabulary lives in references/lexicon.json (display → spoken). Consult it for EVERY technical term; if a term is missing, ask the user for the pronunciation and add the entry — never guess, never ship unheard. New entries: listen to that line in the generated VO before accepting.

Alignment (spoken timestamps → display captions)

heygen-tts.mjs --words returns word timestamps of the SPOKEN text. scripts/align-captions.mjs walks the spoken stream against the token lines (one display token may cover several spoken words — "C L I" is three) and emits captions.json:

{
  "lines": [
    {
      "end": 3.1,
      "w": [
        ["This", 0.22],
        ["week", 0.4],
        ["JSON", 1.1]
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Each display word carries the start time of its FIRST spoken word; a line's end = the next line's start (last line: last word end + 0.6). The aligner warns MISMATCH when the heard word doesn't fuzzy-match the expected spoken form — every warning must be resolved (fix the lexicon spelling or the transcript) before the captions are trusted.

Caption rail (rendering)

Per captions-overlay: a quiet OVERLAY, never a reserved band. One line, bottom-center (top: 990px, height: 52px on 1080-square), TT Norms Pro 500 32px, ink .94, soft dark text-shadow, words fading in (0.12s) on their timestamps, phrase swaps as sets. Keep critical small text out of the bottom ~100px center span; everything else may run under the rail.