How automatic transcription works
Automatic transcription solutions link acoustic sounds that make up human speech to words in a digital language model - similar to a digital dictionary. If these sounds have several possible matches - for example, due to unclear pronunciation - the automatic transcription software examines the overall context and assigns a probability to each possible word and selects the word it considers the most likely match. This analysis is driven by deep learning algorithms.
However, such post-production solutions are not suitable for live events such as conferences, court hearings or sporting events.
Solutions to transcribe live events
- Human transcriptions
- Automated transcription services
Option B is slightly more complex from a technical point of view, but offers significant advantages over human transcription.
On the surface, AI-driven live transcription is not all that different from human transcription. Imagine a speaker on stage giving a keynote speech. The microphone into which he speaks is connected to a laptop or other device running cloud-based automatic transcription software. Everything the speaker says is sent to the cloud as audio. In the cloud, AI natural language processing technology matches the different sounds with words in a digital language model. The software then sends the text back to be displayed on a monitor so that anyone can read along. The data that the software uploads and downloads is very small, so the whole process happens very quickly.
The advantages of automatic transcriptions
As with many things, there is a certain amount of balancing to be done when deciding between human and AI-driven transcription.Yes, humans are still better at some things. But machines offer many advantages, especially when it comes to accuracy and convenience.
Accuracy
AI-based transcription works well when the general conditions are optimal. Background noise, poor acoustics, strong accents and dialects, specialised vocabulary and inferior recording equipment can all affect the accuracy of AI speech-to-text transcription. Under unfavourable conditions, a "word salad" can therefore occur.However, with the constant optimisation of neural networks that drive speech recognition technology, machine transcription is getting better every day. With some transcription solutions, you can already ensure before an event that potentially difficult accents or dialects are recognised more effectively than with human transcription. With other solutions, it is possible to add words and terms to the system's dictionary to support improved recognition. This feature is invaluable for events where foreign words, jargon and technical language are used.
The accuracy advantage of AI doesn't end there, however. Speech recognition solutions can also analyse context to eliminate ambiguity in word usage. With machine-controlled live transcription software, an editor can also make corrections on the fly with the help of a live editor, so that small errors can still be corrected quickly.
Convenience
It is not always possible to bring in human help for live subtitling or subtitling in general. Perhaps you have scheduled a meeting at short notice and would like to give the participants a transcript to review. Perhaps there are several conferences taking place at the same time and no transcription professional with the right skills is available.With AI-based transcription, you don't have to worry about this. You can quickly set up your automated transcription service and it will do its job. You can also test the system in advance of an event to check the accuracy of speech recognition, or adjust it to recognise industry-specific words or dialects.
Automatic transcription services are also more flexible, as many support multiple languages at once.
Automatic transcription is therefore a very efficient alternative to professional human transcription
Now, there are numerous AI-powered transcription solutions on the market, such as those from Google, Microsoft or Amazon, all of which do a good job in certain areas and languages.
But what if you had access to a variety of providers on a single platform and even had the option of not having to decide which solution to use and instead always get the best result from all solutions?
Find out more about how aiconix can help you take full advantage of today's automated transcription technology.
But what if you had access to a variety of providers on a single platform and even had the option of not having to decide which solution to use and instead always get the best result from all solutions?
Find out more about how aiconix can help you take full advantage of today's automated transcription technology.
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