SpokenData API allows developers to easily add new recordings to their media library. You can either pass a media file URL or you can upload the whole file using the HTTP PUT method that was recently implemented into SpokenData. This post will demonstrate the second option - uploading a file through the SpokenData API call.
So, how does it work? Each SpokenData API function is composed of SpokenData base
API url,
USER-ID,
API-TOKEN and the
name of the function.
| SpokenData API url: | http://spokendata.com/api |
|---|
| USER-ID: | different for each user, available for signed-in at http://spokendata/api |
|---|
| API-TOKEN: | different for each user, available for signed-in at http://spokendata/api |
|---|
| API function: | recording/put |
|---|
If we concatenate the above values, we get the API call url. It may look like this:
http://spokendata.com/api/18/br3sp59a2it7fig94jdtbt3p9ife5qpx39fd8npp/recording/put
Each API call can have parameters. When uploading a new file through API, you need to enter the recording filename and the language for automatic speech processing. So basically, you will end up with a URL looking like this:
http://spokendata.com/api/18/br3sp59a2it7fig94jdtbt3p9ife5qpx39fd8npp/recording/put?filename=audio.mp3&language=english
Basically, there are also available other parameters you can read about in the
SpokenData API documentation. When you call the above url,
don't forget to put the file content.
Here is a code example that uploads an MP3 file using the HTTP PUT method to SpokenData.
<?php
$fileToUpload = 'd:/audio.mp3';
$url = 'http://spokendata.com/api/18/br3sp59a2it7fig94jdtbt3p9ife5qpx39fd8npp/recording/put?filename=audio.mp3&language=english';
$file = fopen($fileToUpload, "rb");
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, '1');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Expect: '));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PUT, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_INFILE, $file);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize($fileToUpload));
$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
header ("Content-Type:text/xml");
echo $response;
The server responds in XML. Here is an example response of the above script.
| |
| <data> |
| <message>New media file "audio.mp3" was successfully added.</message> |
| <recording id="1373"></recording> |
| </data> |
As you can see, the file
audio.mp3 was successfully added and assigned the recording id =
1373.
As some of our users host their recordings on Vimeo, we now support processing of Vimeo files. Simply enter a Vimeo url into the Media File URL input box. 
SpokenData API has a new function that enables users to search in recording transcriptions. This means that you can quickly get a list of captions matching the search query with their start and end time, caption content and speaker identity. The search can be performed either in all user recordings or in a list of selected recordings.
In SpokenData subtitles editor, we changed the rule of displaying the speaker segmentation. From now on, it is hidden by default except for the recordings processed directly by the Speaker segmentation method. However, the speaker segmentation can quickly be shown by clicking on the checkbox Show speaker segmentation. Currently, SpokenData subtitles editor does not support editing the generated speaker identity. When it is implemented, we will consider changing this rule.
Outwave.js is a handy library that can render audio waveform in a web browser. Its development was also supported by SpokenData. Apart from that, this library has a great extension for displaying annotation segments directly on the waveform. The segments can be easily added, deleted, merged or split. By and large, we really needed such a library.
Every registered user has a set of 6 tags. Each tag is marked with a different color and can have a title. Tags come greatly in handy when you want to filter your recordings. For example, you have plenty of recordings and you work on their transcriptions. If you are happy with the transcription, you mark the recording with a tag titled done. As tags are displayed on the top of recording thumbnails, you will immediately spot those recordings which do not need to be transcribed anymore.
From now on, every registered user can get the whole transcription of their multimedia files. To lower the load of our computation cloud, we decided to charge for processing of files longer than 15 minutes. Processing of shorter files remains free and is available to anyone.
We changed the way how we limit the processed data for free accounts. To get a free SpokenData account, register here.
From now on, when you play any recording, you will see an interactive waveform on the left of the transcription. The waveform is only displayed on larger screens with a minimum horizontal resolution of 1220px. The waveform can significantly help you detect moments of speech. When you click into it, the player seeks to that exact moment.
Speaker segmentation (diarization) is a speech technology allowing you to segment audio (or video) into particular speakers. What is it good for? You can more easily identify speaker turns in a dialog while making speech transcript. 
Let's go through 4 easy steps for making subtitles from scratch for a movie or your home/company video. Subtitles are usually stored in a text file with time stamps to synchronize the text with the video. Examples of such text formats are SRT or TT.
Our several year experience in speech technology research and business shows often clash between:
