Speech-to-text without stenomask
An alternative to the special chording keyboards that I wrote about earlier is “voice writing“, a method originally developed by Horace Webb more than 60 years ago. The basic equipment is traditionally a two-track recorder, a microphone for picking up the proceedings that are being transcribed, and a special “stenomask” which the transcriptionist can use to “repeat everything that occurs during testimony” without being heard by others. These days, people use a laptop computer as the multi-track recorder, and they also often use automatic speech recognition software to create a draft of the transcript. The software analyzes the transcriptionist´s shadowing of the proceedings, not the original signal — this allows the (much) higher recognition rates that are possible when the program is adapted to the speaker, and the speaker is adapted to the program. The ASR software used is one of the standard systems, typically either IBM´s ViaVoice or Dragon´s Naturally Speaking.
Chad´s company, Audioscribe, sells software and system packages for this application. Jennifer used this method to transcribe the panel presentations and discussions, with the results appearing in real time on a computer projection screen. The quality was very good, definitely in the range of the “95% correct or better” that is claimed.