[Don Sommers]

Well … I shelled out the money for Dragon Naturally speaking, and … after about 20 minutes of “voice training” took on a 1.5 hour video.

I did this by listening to the clips in media player, and then speaking them back into the program (which saves them in an .rtf Word format). Low and behold, it worked!

This software has come a long way since I first tested it, and it was about 95% accurate. Most times it wasn’t it ended up being my fault for getting a bit bored and not articulating. It also “learns” as it goes … picking up a revision of a company name once, and then recognizing it for the rest of the time.

This is light years better than listening … stopping …. then typing. It’s STILL a pain in the butt to have to do this, however, this software does make it more bearable.

I did (for the heck of it) attempt to just have the software pull decipher via the audio. It got confused quickly, and only about 30% came through correctly. It NEEDS to be “trained” for the voice to be effective.

And now, I can get anyone (especially bad typists) to use this and pass the work off to others as around me as well if required.

Nice …. 🙂

[Don Sommers]

Thanks Mike,

Going with your thoughts on “external transcription services” … Can you (or anyone else) make recommendations on a such a service (services) … or do privacy issues prevent that on this forum?

As another quick note … This is one of the other links I found that uses a stop/start foot pedal so the typist can readily listen to a line, stop the audio to catch up, then start the audio again… https://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html

It’s rather “secretarial” to say the least … but at least you can stop and start the audio WHILE typing instead of always clicking to stop … typing …. then clicking to start, and stop again.

[Don Sommers]

I did think of that as well. Not sure what Vince’s success rate has been with it … but it just occurred to me that I could listen and repeat what was being said in the video into the software.

Thereby, the software would be “trained” to my voice (as you suggest) and I could literally “dictate” to it via the video.

Still very crude .. but a far cry better than the hours of typing that I am currently doing.

I’m going to try it out …. It’ll cost me around $120. It will either be the best money I’ve spent in a long time … or, I’ll be back to typing again and out a few bucks…

[Don Sommers]

I’ll give it a try .. and cross my fingers … 🙂

I use a Sennheiser Lav mic in what is usually a “studio like” environment (no “noise”, etc.) so my sound is always really good. Hopefully, good enough for the software to recognize.

Thank you again for your help….

[Don Sommers]

Thanks for your response, Vince.

Comment from your posting:> “run that through a text to speech software when the client needs a transcript.”
– I’m assuming you mean speech to text software in this comment…

Can you tell me which speech to text software you have (or are) using. I’ll try most anything at this point because I really need to get some time back.

Thanks again…

[Don Sommers]

Hi … thanks for the response.

I ended up removing FFDShow from the system. I didn’t have VLC or GOM installed.

I also changed the video back to 29.97 frames when outputting from After Effects. It had somehow chosen a 30 fps marker.

Once I did that, .. and then rendered out the video … it shows up correctly again (very strange) in Media Player. I did come across a posting in the forum suggesting to change to 29.97.

I’ve been too busy rendering out a large amount of clips (chromakeying) to post back my findings (sorry)… I lost about a day trying to figure out what the problem was.

To be honest … I’m still not totally sure what it was, because I did have FFDShow running previously, and my After Effects renders were fine. So all in all, I still consider this as “unsolved” from my end … and hope it doesn’t happen again any time soon (at least not when I have a deadline).

Thanks again for your reply…. 🙂

Don

[Don Sommers]

“A” looks like “B” with lights added to me.

Honestly, you’ll have to experiment. I have found that THE most important thing for me has been watching out for spill. Keylight and other keyers do an excellent job of getting rid of most of the background by default (even if it’s somewhat uneven) … but there is nothing worse than having the bright green background spill onto the edges of hair, clothing (etc.) and having it destroy your key.

You can have THE best and most evenly lit background in either blue or green … and spill will kill it.

[Don Sommers]

Been doing green/blue screen for years.

Here’s a few things that have worked for me for the low to medium budget shots…
– use a two-sided (green / blue) fabric screen (I use mostly the collapsible ones). I can’t count how many times I’ve had to switch between them because the subjects arrive wearing something that ends up keying out … or they have white or grey hair (which is horrible to work with in green but excellent to key in blue)
– use a minimum of 2 good fresel lights with a Rosco frost in front of them. Buy multiple sheets of different types of frost so you can easily clip them to the barndoors to vary the amount of light you cast onto the green/blue screen
– use fresnels because you can open them to full open and get a good beam … use Arri’s or Dedo’s (if you can afford them)
– keep the subject at least 10 ft. away … or you’ll get spill (especially with green screen)
– use 1 or 2 good 150w back/hair lights (with frost) …it helps to kill spill on the back of the subject
– use a KinoFlo Diva (if you can afford it ..they are the best) or a softbox for Key and fill lights
– finally, set your video camera to MANUAL!! and get the right settings … have someone or some thing as your test BEFORE the talent arrives
– write down or save your settings on the video camera for next time so you’ll have a starting place (saves a ton of time in setup)
– shoot darker rather than lighter (you can always lighten up a dark shot… but you can’t fill in blown out whites afterwards)