Tag Archives: audio

Lab Notes: Transcription with Vibe and Buzz

Posted on by

By Nelson Garcia

Vibe and Buzz are free audio/video transcription programs. 

Vibe

Vibe is an on-device transcription program that will take an audio file or a video file and convert whatever is spoken in that file into text that you can format in a bunch of different ways.  It is simple to use, and it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is open source in both the software and the engine that it is using. It uses Open AI Whisper engine to do the transcription. 

Useful features include:

  • It can function offline
  • It will transcribe into over 90 different languages.
  • It has diarization (speaker recognition) and can edit\change speakers.
  • It can be saved in various formats including .txt, .srt., .docx, and .pdf.
  • It can summarize transcripts with llama or Claude (additional steps required)
  • Optimized for GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
  • It will NOT translate from English to another language, but it can translate into English from over 90 languages.
  • Note: Like other transcription software\programs, it doesn’t handle crosstalk very well.
Continue reading →

Lab Notes: Audio Transcription Tools

Posted on by

By Nakiyyah Adams

How do you review hundreds of jail calls? What about 3 months of 24-hour video surveillance on a house? Twenty bodycameras covering  1-2 hours each of a multi-jurisdictional car chase and stop?

Audio transcription tools are one potential answer. These tools can analyze audio and video files and create text searchable transcripts. You can imagine the huge time-saving benefit here—instead of trying to watch or listen to hours and hours of recordings, only some of which might be relevant, a text searchable transcript could be searched using keywords, or even just read quickly in less time than experiencing the recording in real-time.

Continue reading →

Reduce Background Noise in Audio Files with Audacity

Posted on by

By Nelson Garcia

Audacity is a free software program that can record and edit audio files. It supports all major audio formats. With it, you can convert files from format to format, such as from WAV to MP3. You can also use it to reduce background noise in audio files.

To reduce background noise in Audacity, first open your audio file in the program. As with all discovery, please make sure to always work with a copy of the discovery file and never the original.

Select a section of the audio containing only the noise that you want to reduce or remove. Try the beginning or the end of your recording or look for a good pause somewhere in your audio file.  The key is to select an area with minimal activity. On the file this looks like a flat line.  Select enough of the audio to get a good analysis of the noise. Figure 1 below shows what this minimal activity looks like:

Continue reading →

Shutter Encoder

Posted on by
Shutter Encoder

We are constantly on the lookout for new tools to keep in our litigation support toolbox and Shutter Encoder is quickly becoming one of our new favorites. It’s a publicly available (a.k.a. “free”) media converter program that is based on standards and functions within the open-source FFmpeg software project. Currently there are both PC and Mac versions available for download from their website: https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/. 

Continue reading →