Batch Speech Transcription programs?

January 22, 2007 4:39 AM

Batch Speech Transcription?

Are there any programs that, given a directory of wav or mp3 files, can do voice recognition and transcription on them? I don't need perfect accuracy.

posted by empath to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I've been looking for this too. I'm assuming the previous incarnations of this question didn't yield satisfactory answers. There really doesn't seem to be anything accurate out there at all, unless the voice on your files is enunciating perfectly. I'd be thrilled if someone could demonstrate otherwise.
posted by sleevener at 6:20 AM on January 22, 2007

Haven't checked any of the programs linked, but this might be worth investigating.
posted by sleevener at 6:24 AM on January 22, 2007

I wonder how podzinger does it, then. They can't have hired people to transcribe all those podcasts, can they?
posted by empath at 6:29 AM on January 22, 2007

Podzinger uses speech recognition software. It is a spinoff of BBN Technologies, a company that has been working on speech recognition for decades. I don't believe they have (or will) released their software for public use.
posted by i love cheese at 7:14 AM on January 22, 2007

There are products that claim to support batch transcription. They are far from cheap:

Dragon Naturally Speaking SDK Server Edition (contact Nuance for pricing)

Wizzscribe SI for Linux $3400
posted by i love cheese at 7:31 AM on January 22, 2007

There was also another company, I can't remember their name offhand, that did podcasts and they kept their costs down by hiring transcriptionists from India.
posted by perpetualstroll at 9:54 AM on January 22, 2007

I remember seeing transcription fairly cheap on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A company that does transcription using that is Casting Words, so that might be another option.
posted by ejaned8 at 2:05 PM on January 22, 2007