One of my hats these days has me supporting students and faculty in the use of NVivo, a piece of software used for qualitative data analysis. Often people are wanting to analyze the text of recorded interviews, and of course that usually requires someone to transcribe the audio into text. I'm always on the lookout for free tools to automate this process.
I didn't realize it was that long ago, but last December I started playing with an automatic transcription tool called AutoEdit2, and found it pretty decent. Yesterday and today, ResearchBuzz led me to two new options, so I thought I'd do a quick comparison.
First up was a link to this announcement on TechCrunch about Deepgram. Then today was a pointer to Hongkiat's How to Transcribe YouTube Videos Automatically, which actually has pointers to several different tools or methods. I was most interested in the new-to-me option of having Google Docs automatically type what it heard into a document. Do note this method requires the use of the Chrome browser - I missed that and couldn't find the option in Firefox when I first tried...
For testing purposes I grabbed a short audio clip of George W. Bush's Oath of Office from The George W. Bush Public Domain Audio Archive.
Here's what Deepgram made of it:
please your right and never after me i george walk bush too solemnly swear i told what university so this work but i will say for extra office of person of the united states that i was lately excuse a of the united states and roll to the best of my and well the best of my ability sure protect learn the constitution of the united states sarah protect and the fan constitution of the united states saw not like so help
me god in congratulations
Here's what Google Docs heard:
The only answer please raise your right hand and repeat after me I George Walker Bush do solemnly swear a George Walker Bush to sell them I swear that I will Faithfully execute the office of President of the United States that I will Faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States Constitution of the United States
And here's what AutoEdit2 came up with:
the only please raise your right hand and repeat after me I George Walker bush do solemnly swear I George Walker bush do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability and will to the best in my ability preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States so help me god so help me god congratulate
So it seems to me on this very short audio sample that AutoEdit2 did very well, followed by Google Docs, with Deepgram bringing up the rear. Deepgram is the easiest to use, requiring the user to simply upload an audio file or point to either a YouTube video or online audio file. Once installed (MacOS only), AutoEdit2 is also very simple, though does require the file to be local, not online. And Google Docs is a bit of a pain to set up initially, but after a little trial and error is fairly straightforward and can record either a local file or something streaming online.
Curious to hear if you've played with any of these, or other tools, with longer audio clips, and if you find the same results?
