Fast transcription of speech

Abstract

A transcription tool assists a user in transcribing audio. The transcription tool includes an audio classification component that classifies an incoming audio stream based on whether portions of the audio stream contain speech data. The transcription tool plays the portions of the audio that contain speech data back to the user and skips the portions of the audio that do not contain speech data. Using a relatively simple command set, the user can control the transcription tool and annotate transcribed text.

Description

[0001] This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.119 based on U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60 / 394,064 and 60 / 394,082 filed Jul. 3, 2002 and Provisional Application No. 60 / 419,214 filed Oct. 17, 2002, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.[0003] A. Field of the Invention[0004] The present invention relates generally to speech processing and, more particularly, to the transcription of speech.[0005] B. Description of Related Art[0006] Speech has not traditionally been valued as an archival information source. As effective as the spoken word is for communicating, archiving spoken segments in a useful and easily retrievable manner has long been a difficult proposition. Although the act of recording audio is not difficult, automatically transcribing and indexing speech in an intelligent and useful manner can be difficult.[0007] Automatic transcription systems are generally based on language and acoustic models. The language model is trained on a s...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

As effective as the spoken word is for communicating, archiving spoken segments in a useful and easily retrievable manner has long been a difficult proposition.

Although the act of recording audio is not difficult, automatically transcribing and indexing speech in an intelligent and useful manner can be difficult.

Manually transcribing speech can be a time consuming, and thus expensive, task.

Accordingly, in situations in which a lot of training data is required, or in which a number of different languages are to be modeled, the cost of obtaining the training data can be prohibitive.

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