Transcription Problems

[James]

HI-

Let me preface this by saying that I have attempted to read everything on the website and as much of the forums as I can before I posted my problem.

I have an mp3 file that I would like to transcribe.

I convert the mp3 file to wav using mp3.jar (javaworld article code on how to do this) and jl1.0.jar (more open source java mp3 libraries). That all seems to go well, I get a wav file with:

WAVE (.wav) file, byte length: 789322, data format: PCM_SIGNED 16000.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, little-endian, frame length: 197313

Good right? I have 16khz, 16bit, little-endian, everything should be well.

So I am then using the following config file, pinched from transcriber and modified as the readme mentions (change grammar, linguist, and language model):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!--
Sphinx-4 Configuration file
-->

<!-- ******** -->
<!-- an4 configuration file -->
<!-- ******** -->

<config>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- frequently tuned properties                              -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<property name="logLevel" value="WARNING"/>

<property name="absoluteBeamWidth"  value="-1"/>
<property name="relativeBeamWidth"  value="1E-80"/>
<property name="wordInsertionProbability" value="1E-36"/>
 <property name="silenceInsertionProbability" value=".1"/>
<property name="languageWeight"     value="8"/>
<property name="frontend" value="epFrontEnd"/>
<property name="recognizer" value="recognizer"/>
<property name="showCreations" value="false"/>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- word recognizer configuration                            -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="recognizer" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.recognizer.Recognizer">
    <property name="decoder" value="decoder"/>
    <propertylist name="monitors">
        <item>accuracyTracker </item>
        <item>speedTracker </item>
        <item>memoryTracker </item>
    </propertylist>

</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The Decoder   configuration                              -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="decoder" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.Decoder">
    <property name="searchManager" value="searchManager"/>
</component>

<component name="searchManager"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.SimpleBreadthFirstSearchManager">
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
<property name="linguist" value="lexTreeLinguist"/>
<property name="pruner" value="trivialPruner"/>
<property name="scorer" value="threadedScorer"/>
<property name="activeListFactory" value="activeList"/>
</component>

 <!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The Active Lists                                         -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

 <component name="activeList" 
         type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.PartitionActiveListFactory">
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="absoluteBeamWidth" value="${absoluteBeamWidth}"/>
    <property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="${relativeBeamWidth}"/>
</component>

<component name="trivialPruner" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.pruner.SimplePruner"/>

<component name="threadedScorer" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.scorer.ThreadedAcousticScorer">
    <property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
    <property name="isCpuRelative" value="true"/>
    <property name="numThreads" value="0"/>
    <property name="minScoreablesPerThread" value="10"/>
    <property name="scoreablesKeepFeature" value="true"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The linguist  configuration                              -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="lexTreeLinguist" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.lextree.LexTreeLinguist">
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="acousticModel" value="hub4"/>
    <property name="languageModel" value="trigramModel"/>
    <property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
    <property name="addFillerWords" value="false"/>
    <property name="fillerInsertionProbability" value="1E-10"/>
    <property name="generateUnitStates" value="false"/>
    <property name="wantUnigramSmear" value="true"/>
    <property name="unigramSmearWeight" value="1"/>
    <property name="wordInsertionProbability" 
            value="${wordInsertionProbability}"/>
    <property name="silenceInsertionProbability" 
            value="${silenceInsertionProbability}"/>
    <property name="languageWeight" value="${languageWeight}"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The Dictionary configuration                            -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<component name="dictionary"
      type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.dictionary.FastDictionary">
    <property name="dictionaryPath" value="resource:/edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz.Model!/edu/cmu/sphinx/model/acoustic/HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz/cmudict.06d"/>
    <property name="fillerPath" value="resource:/edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz.Model!/edu/cmu/sphinx/model/acoustic/HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz/fillerdict"/>
    <property name="addSilEndingPronunciation" value="false"/>
    <property name="allowMissingWords" value="false"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

 <!-- ************************************************** -->
<!-- trigramModel                                       -->
<!-- ************************************************** -->

<component name="trigramModel"
      type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.language.ngram.large.LargeTrigramModel">
    <property name="unigramWeight" value=".5"/>
    <property name="maxDepth" value="3"/>
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
    <property name="location"
              value="C:/eclipse/workspace/PodCastSearch/lab/speech/sphinx4/data/hub4_model/language_model.arpaformat.DMP"/>
</component>

<!-- ************************************************** -->
<!-- flatUnigramModel                                   -->
<!-- ************************************************** -->
<component name="flatUnigramModel" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.language.ngram.SimpleNGramModel">
    <property name="location" 
               value="hub4.flat_unigram.lm"/>
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
    <property name="maxDepth" value="1"/>
    <property name="unigramWeight" value=".7"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The acoustic model configuration                         -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="hub4"
    type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz.Model">
    <property name="loader" value="sphinx3Loader"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

<component name="sphinx3Loader"
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.HUB4_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_133Hz_6855Hz.ModelLoader">
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The acoustic model configuration                         -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<component name="wsj"
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.Model">
    <property name="loader" value="wsjLoader"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

<component name="wsjLoader" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.ModelLoader">
    <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
    <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The unit manager configuration                           -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="unitManager" 
    type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.acoustic.UnitManager"/>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The live frontend configuration                          -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<component name="epFrontEnd" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.FrontEnd">
    <propertylist name="pipeline">
        <item>streamDataSource </item>
        <item>speechClassifier </item>
        <item>speechMarker </item>
        <item>nonSpeechDataFilter </item>
        <item>premphasizer </item>
        <item>windower </item>
        <item>fft </item>
        <item>melFilterBank </item>
        <item>dct </item>
        <item>liveCMN </item>
        <item>featureExtraction </item>
    </propertylist>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- The frontend pipelines                                   -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<component name="streamDataSource"
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.util.StreamDataSource">
    <property name="sampleRate" value="16000"/>
    <property name="bitsPerSample" value="16"/>
    <property name="bigEndianData" value="false"/>
    <property name="signedData" value="true"/>
    <property name="bytesPerRead" value="320"/>
</component>

<component name="speechClassifier" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechClassifier">
    <property name="threshold" value="13"/>
</component>

<component name="nonSpeechDataFilter" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.NonSpeechDataFilter"/>

<component name="speechMarker" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechMarker" >
    <property name="speechTrailer" value="50"/>
</component>

<component name="premphasizer" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.filter.Preemphasizer"/>

<component name="windower" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.window.RaisedCosineWindower">
</component>

<component name="fft" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteFourierTransform">
</component>

<component name="melFilterBank" 
    type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.frequencywarp.MelFrequencyFilterBank">
</component>

<component name="dct" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteCosineTransform"/>

<component name="liveCMN" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.LiveCMN"/>

<component name="featureExtraction" 
           type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.DeltasFeatureExtractor"/>

<!-- ******************************************************* -->
<!--  monitors                                               -->
<!-- ******************************************************* -->

<component name="accuracyTracker" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.AccuracyTracker">
    <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
    <property name="showAlignedResults" value="false"/>
    <property name="showRawResults" value="false"/>
</component>

<component name="memoryTracker" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.MemoryTracker">
    <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
<property name="showSummary" value="false"/>
<property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
</component>

<component name="speedTracker" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.SpeedTracker">
    <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
    <property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
<property name="showSummary" value="true"/>
<property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
</component>

<!-- ******************************************************* -->
<!--  Miscellaneous components                               -->
<!-- ******************************************************* -->

<component name="logMath" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.util.LogMath">
    <property name="logBase" value="1.0001"/>
    <property name="useAddTable" value="true"/>
</component>

</config>

So as you can see I am using the hub4 models (and dicts) to attempt my decoding. Also note where I specify the wav file format, I think that is right, though the bytesPerRead I am less sure of (though I read a recent post saying that what I have is correct, I think, and does being in stereo matter?).

So my problem is that on a 10 second wav file, the runtime is extraordinary (over 20 minutes so far on a 3.2GHz dual-core machine with 4 GB of ram) and the transcription is really terrible.

Does anyone have any config files for transcribing text that work okay, that I could see? This seems like a fairly common usage, maybe we could add it to the wiki....

Thanks much in advance, and apologies for my incompetence.

James