Speech transcription tool for efficient speech transcription

Abstract

A transcription tool [115] includes a graphical user interface [209] that displays the waveform of an input audio signal to a user. The user may define speaker turn segments using the displayed waveform. The graphical user interface further displays a transcription section [302] that includes a textual representation of speech that was transcribed by the user and a graphical representation of annotation information [314] relating to the transcribed text. The user may enter the annotation information on-the-fly while transcribing the text using predefined keyboard shortcut commands or other mechanisms. The graphical user interface may further display a structured representation section [303] that may present the transcribed text as a hierarchical tree structure.

Description

[0001] This application is related to the concurrently-filed U.S. application (Docket No. 02-4040), Ser. No. ______, titled "Fast Transcription of Speech," which is incorporated herein by reference.[0002] This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 119 based on U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 419,214 filed Oct. 17, 2002, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.[0004] A. Field of the Invention[0005] The present invention relates generally to speech processing and, more particularly, to the transcription of speech.[0006] B. Description of Related Art[0007] 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.[0008] Au...

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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