TRANSCRIPT ALIGNMENT

• US 20070233486A1
• Filed: 06/05/2007
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nexidia Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Original Assignee: Nexidia Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Inventors: Griggs, Kenneth
• Granted Patent: US 7,487,086 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/251
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

An approach to alignment of transcripts with recorded audio is tolerant of moderate transcript inaccuracies, untranscribed speech, and significant non-speech noise. In one aspect, a number of search terms are formed from the transcript such that each search term is associated with a location within the transcript. Possible locations of the search terms are then determined in the audio recording. The audio recording and the transcript are then aligned using the possible locations of the search terms. In another aspect a search expression is accepted, and then a search is performed for spoken occurrences of the search expression in an audio recording. This search includes searching for text occurrences of the search expression in a text transcript of the audio recording, and searching for spoken occurrences of the search expression in the audio recording.

Claims

1-13. -13. (canceled)

14. A method for searching an audio recording comprising:

accepting a search expression;

searching for spoken occurrences of the search expression in the audio recording, including

(a) searching for text occurrences of the search expression in a text transcript of the audio recording, and

(b) searching for spoken occurrences of the search expression in the audio recording; and

presenting representations of the results of the searching for the spoken occurrences of the search expression, including enabling access to portions of the audio recording corresponding to each of the results of the searching.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the searching for the text occurrences and the searching for the spoken occurrences are performed concurrently.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein presenting the representations of the results includes sorting the results according to confidence that the search expression is present in the corresponding portions of the audio recording.

17. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

prior to accepting the search expression, storing an alignment of the text transcript of the audio recording with the audio recording, said alignment associating at least some portions of the text transcript with corresponding portions of the audio recording.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein enabling access to the portions of the audio recording corresponding to each of the results includes accessing the stored alignment of the text transcript to identify the portions of the audio recording corresponding to at least some of the results.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

prior to accepting the search expression, preprocessing the audio recording to determine statistical quantities related to presence of spoken units in the audio recording.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein searching for the spoken occurrences of the search expression includes accessing the statistical quantities determined during preprocessing of the stored audio recording.

21. The method of claim 14 wherein searching for the spoken occurrences in the audio recording includes applying a word spotting approach.

22. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

accepting a selection of one of the results of the searching; and

playing the portion of the audio recording corresponding to the selected result.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising:

presenting a graphical representation of a portion of the text transcript corresponding to the selected result.

24. One or more processor readable storage devices having code embodied on said storage devices, said code for programming one or more processors to perform a method for searching an audio recording, said method comprising:

accepting a search expression;

searching for spoken occurrences of the search expression in the audio recording, including

(a) searching for text occurrences of the search expression in a text transcript of the audio recording, and

(b) searching for spoken occurrences of the search expression in the audio recording; and

presenting representations of the results of the searching for the spoken occurrences of the search expression, including enabling access to portions of the audio recording corresponding to each of the results of the searching.

25. The storage devices of claim 24 wherein the storage devices further have embodied thereon:

data encoding the audio recording;

the text transcript of the audio recording; and

data associating portions of the text transcript with corresponding portions of the audio recording;

26. The storage devices of claim 24 wherein the one or more storage devices include one or more removable optical disks.