How do I convert speech to text?

Question

How could I take MP3 and convert the speech to text?

I've got some recorded notes from a conference and from meetings (there is a single voice on the recording, which is my voice). I thought it would be easier and intellectually interesting to convert to text using speech to text tools rather than simply transcribe by hand. I know there are technologies out there, especially for VoIP applications using Asterisk and Podcasts, but what are they and how can I use them?

Answer 1

Open Source: CMU Sphinx

Shareware: http://www.e-speaking.com/ (Windows)

Commercial: Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Windows)

Answer 2

.NET can do it with its System.Speech namespace.

You would have to convert to .wav first or capture the audio live from the mic.

Details on implementation can be found here: Transcribing Audio with .NET

Answer 3

Dragon NaturallySpeaking seems to support MP3 input.

If you want an open source version (I think there are some Asterisk integration projects based on this one).

Answer 4

Late to the party, so answering more for future reference.

Advances in the field + Mozilla's mindset and agenda led to these two projects towards that end:

• Deep Speech
• Common voice

The latter has a 12GB data-set for download. The former allows for training a model with your own audio files to my understanding