ryanwold.net - Civic Tech, Bitcoin, and Open Government Innovation

Title

Text

My use case: transcribing 1-hour user interview audio into text.

Result: still looking for a solution

Experience:

I used the [Ruby .gem](https://github.com/google/google-api-ruby-client) `google-api-client` to access the system.

I set `GOOGLE_ACCOUNT_TYPE`, `GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID`, `GOOGLE_CLIENT_EMAIL`, `GOOGLE_PRIVATE_KEY` env variables, based on the Service Account key I got from the [Google Developer Console](https://developer.google.com).

I used this code to test an API request:

require 'google/apis/speech_v1beta1'

audio_file_path = 'brooklyn.wav'
    speech_service = Google::Apis::SpeechV1beta1::SpeechService.new

speech_service.authorization = Google::Auth.get_application_default(
      %[ https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform ]
    )

request = Google::Apis::SpeechV1beta1::AsyncRecognizeRequest.new
    request.audio  = { 
      content: File.read(audio_file_path) 
    }
    request.config = {
      encoding: "LINEAR16", # or "FLAC"
      sample_rate: 16000 # or 44000
    };

# Make the Async request
    response = speech_service.async_recognize_speech request

puts response.name

# Then, get the result of the Async job
    status = speech_service.get_operation response.name

----

The result of `status` should be the transcription response from the Google Speech API which contains the transcribed text of the audio snippet uploaded.

Google Speech API is currently in beta, I expect it to have a focal use case, and yes, the sample sound of the Brooklyn bridge works well - a short, clear, concise snippet of audio. However, an open-ended ~40ish minute conversation submitted to the Speech API returned an array of possible one-word transcriptions - each sorta funny, but ultimately abysmally inaccurate.

#### Verdict

A speech API. Amazing!

Not a transcription API, oh well.

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