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Hi Philippe,
Aside from going into a 3d software like 3D Studio Max and manually creating an animation for the mouth movements specifically for your sound file, there isn't a more sophisticated method other than vizact.speak (for now). Internally, we're discussing how to improve many avatar features - and one of the features we want to beef up is the speak method.
The best you can do for now is to have a very clean recording and to tweak the scale and threshold parameters. I have some pointers for getting a clean sound file:
1) if you can avoid it, do not use a pc mic connected to the mic line of your soundcard.
2). Get a real microphone (e.g. Shure SM58 for $100 would be top notch for this) and boost the signal using a preamp, multitracker, etc, and feed the signal to the line in of your sound card (*not* the mic line).
3) use a pop filter OR (this is important especially if you're using a pc mic) speak into the microphone at an angle instead of head on. This is to reduce the "pops" in the sound file you get from plosives (words with p's, b's, etc like the word "pop"). When you speak these words a burst of air hits the microphone if you are head on, and it makes the sound "clip" (distortion caused by maxing out the input level).
4) finally, use an audio editing software (e.g. Audacity is a freeware) to clean up the sound. Use high/low pass filters to get rid of the low hums and rumbles and also the high pitched hisses. You can also use parametric eq's to boost the mid range (where most voices fall). Filters like pop-filters, click-filters, etc should be helpful as well. Basically you want a loud and clean sound file without any noise or clipping. That will yield the best lip movement.
Best,
Masaki
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