Audio Delay Miscommunication Reduction via Timestamped Text Transcripts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Audio/video conferencing often experiences delays due to limited network bandwidth, leading to miscommunication among participants, as responses are received in a delayed fashion, causing interruptions in the duplex communication experience.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that captures and timestamps audio and video data, translates it into text using speech-to-text technology, and compares timestamps across participants to determine delays, generating a true, real-time transcript that aligns communications and corrects for any misalignments, thereby reducing miscommunication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If audio/video data is transmitted over network, then communication between participants is enabled, but delays occur due to limited network bandwidth causing miscommunication
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces text transcripts as an intermediary representation of audio content. Instead of directly transmitting and relying on audio streams alone, the system converts audio to text timestamps and uses these text representations as mediators to synchronize and align communication between participants, thereby compensating for audio transmission delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the reliance on synchronous audio stream transmission (mechanical system) with a text-based timestamp comparison approach. By substituting direct audio timing synchronization with text transcript analysis and timestamp alignment, the system eliminates the constraint of network bandwidth limitations on audio synchronization.
2Measurement precision
If speech-to-text translation is performed on both sender and recipient devices, then timestamp comparison can detect delays, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs speech-to-text translation and timestamp generation on the sender device before transmission. This preliminary action creates the text transcript foundation in advance, so that the recipient device only needs to perform translation and timestamp comparison without having to generate transcripts from scratch, thereby reducing overall system complexity while maintaining precise delay detection.
3Reliability
If real-time transcript generation with timestamp comparison is implemented, then miscommunication is reduced, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements speech-to-text translation selectively - performing it on the sender device for all audio, and on the recipient device only when needed for timestamp comparison. This partial action approach provides sufficient communication accuracy by comparing timestamps rather than requiring full real-time translation and synchronization of all audio content, thereby maintaining productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments for delay-induced miscommunication reduction are provided. The embodiment may include capturing data streams transmitted between participants in an A/V exchange; translating, on a sender device prior to transmission to a recipient device, an audio stream within the data streams to text; timestamping, on a sender device prior to transmission to the recipient device, each word in the translated audio stream; transmitting the audio stream and the sender-side translated and timestamped audio stream to the recipient device; translating, on the recipient device, the transmitted audio stream to text; timestamping, on the recipient device, each word in the translated audio stream; determining a lag exists in the A/V exchange based on a comparison of each timestamp for corresponding words on the sender-side translated and timestamped audio stream and the recipient-side translated and timestamped audio stream; and generating a true transcript of an intended exchange between the participants based on the comparison.