C: Good .
B: OK . " MATE Mark - up Framework " .
B: OK ?
C: Right .
D: " Specification of uh Coding workbench " ,
A: Mm - hmm .
D: That 's one o thing ,
D: and then , back in here
B: Oh , no !
B: It has the word " X M L " in it !
C: Oh , good .
C: It must be It must be fundable then .
D: " KCM file formats " ,
A: Oh , looks like Looks like uh work packages .
D: This is the
A: Must be a European project .
C: Yeah .
C: Oh , yeah .
D: Yeah , it is European .
D: Both of these are Eur - European ,
D: but they have you know , American contributions , and stuff .
A: Oh , so they 're using the Alembic Workbench , from Mitre .
C: Alembic ?
A: I guess .
D: Yeah .
B: Is that free ?
A: I don't know .
D: Well i but you see they have a whole bunch of things .
D: What they 're doing is trying to bring together D: and they rate things .
D: I wasn't focused on that
D: so I didn't D: Let me show y
D: Have you seen this one , Dan ?
C: No .
D: And I 'll try to get one for you , too .
D: Oh , you 've got one .
D: What are you looking at here ?
D: He 's got the Mark - up Framework .
D: Oh , yeah .
D: Different coding schemes .
B: But it doesn't have enough pictures .
B: So , I think it will require too much reading to understand whether this is anything that we can easily use .
D: OK .
A: Oh ,
A: this is ,
A: I see .
A: They 're reviewing , and D: What they 're doing is they 're comp comparing all these existing things that have been submitted
D: and And it includes , this one includes the TEI
A: I see .
D: and uh
D: so it 's it 's um pretty broad - based .
B: " TEI " is ?
D: These things do seem to be A: Mitre ,
D: That 's the Text Encoding Initiative .
B: Oh .
D: That 's a way of marking mark - up .
D: so , you know , but focus on tools to do this stuff
D: um , I do have a file also in addition to those things ,
D: but
D: it 'll take me just a second here
B: Well , I guess XML makes some amount of sense .
B: I 'm not actually familiar with it
B: but it seems to be the sort of thing that this would be good for .
B: But D: Well , yeah ,
D: I mean , if you start with a a basic transcription and a good filter . You can B: Mm - hmm .
D: I mean , that 's sort of my feeling about it ,
D: that you should be you should be able to translate between an XML and non - XML version
D: cuz most at least , you know , with a focus on discourse , mostly .
B: Right .
D: Oh ! I wanted to
D: This this approach here This is Uli Heid from Stuttgart D: is um a query language for research in phonetics where he wants to build in ToBI tags
D: and so you can determine
D: um I wanted to mention this to you .
D: I was going to come by and ask you about this .
C: Mm - hmm .
D: Do you know about the Stuttgart um people ?
D: Because he 's saying if you represent C: I don't think so .
D: He says that uh in German " selbst " is used in two different ways
D: so you have It either means uh " himself " or it means " even "
D: and you can tell the difference in terms of uh intonation .
C: Mm - hmm .
D: So , they have the recordings such that they can locate things uh with by searching for part of speech and also intonational tags .
C: Hmm .
C: Mm - hmm .
D: Anyway , that 's that .
C: Because the transcriber 's put in intonational tags ?
D: This is true .
D: This is true .
D: Which of course is another issue .
C: Or maybe not .
D: Exactly so .
D: and then I have one more thing I need to find .
C: Well .
A: But that kind of thing I think we would probably want to extract automatically .
D: And then I 'll be A: I mean , e this is , the this is a conversation that we should have with Liz .
D: Yeah .
D: Yes .
D: Oh . OK .
A: Right ,
A: I think ,
A: because she 's going to be She 's going to be the one who 's the most concerned about this kind of thing .
D: OK .
A: And so she may have some ideas . on on that particular issue .
C: Mm - hmm .
B: Right , but it 's I think for the initial task , just getting the word transcripts and speaker change is highest on my list .
D: Yeah .
D: I w I D: Yeah .
D: Well that 's what Morgan mentioned to me , too .
B: So .
D: I mean , if in terms of the t the type A: Yeah .
D: But you asked me about uh tools and things
D: and um There 's this one
C: Yeah .
D: um This is called " Transcriber " .
D: um " binary distribution for  for uh Linux and Solaris and SGI and Windows " .
B: Mm - hmm .
C: Mm - hmm .
D: " Transcriber is a tool for assisting creation of speech corpora . "
C: Who 's it from ?
C: Right .
D: " It allows to manually segment , label and transcribe speech signals "
D: And ,
C: Is it the French one ?
D: uh , let 's see ,
D: where did I get this ?
D: I got this from U Penn .
C: U Penn .
C: I think that I 've heard of this one .
D: But C: It was the one that Steve Renals mentioned .
D: It is possible .
D: It could be French .
D: I can't really tell .
B: Well I think that uh A: Can I see that ?
B: It sounds like you 're at least a little familiar with these tools , Jane ,
B: so Are y Do you feel comfortable just picking one ?
B: Um , because D: I 've never used any of them .
B: OK .
D: And so um I think it would be something that we should work uh together with , in terms of uh seeing how this C: Sure .
A: Right .
D: Here 's another thing I got .
A: Oh , so this 'd this w is probably what the L D C uses .
A: I mean they do a lot of transcription at the L D
D: OK .
A: I could ask my contacts at the LDC what what it is they actually use .
D: Oh !
A: I mean , I know , I mean I 've got I 've got contacts up there ,
D: Good idea .
D: Great idea .
B: Signed language is interesting .
A: so .
D: Excellent idea .
A: So .
D: " Automatic annotation of prosody in Verbmobil . "
C: Can I see ?
A: Yeah .
D: This is the other think that um This is part of EAGLES ,
D: but um ,
D: but here again , it 's focusing on representation rather than the tools to do this .
D: Why do I feel like I 'm whispering ?
B: Well , so , how should we proceed on picking a tool ?
B: Jane , do you want to pick a few
B: and we 'll download them and try them out ?
B: Is that the right thing to do ?
D: Oh !
D: I think that would be lovely .
D: Now , so , are we talking about the stage of uh simply the word stage ?
D: or are you talking about tools that would allow the time alignment as well ?
B: No , we 're not going to do time alignment .
A: No .
C: Well Well , We are going to do time alignment .
D: OK .
C: but we 'll probably do it ourselves ,
C: right ?
C: So we 're not we 're not concerned about getting getting about buying and or bringing in tools .
A: Right .
A: We 're very good at time alignments .
C: We 're not very good
D: OK .
C: but we 're proud of ourselves .
A: Right .
A: OK .
C: We 're very proud of our time alignment .
D: Absolutely .
D: Yeah ,
D: OK .
B: Right , and so but , in terms of what the transcriber needs to do , they 're not going to have to do time alignment .
D: Good .
D: Oh good , OK .
B: Except maybe for word speaker change ,
D: Fine .
B: but C: Right .
C: I mean , it 's not a bad C: Oh look !
C: It uses Snack !
C: Um .
A: Uses what ?
C: It uses Snack .
C: That 's a TCL audio thing that I had some involvement with .
B: OK , then we 'll have to use it .
D: Oh , cool .
D: Very cool .
B: No no question .
C: Yeah .
C: If I have to use it
C: I 'm sure I 'm sure It 's a TCL - based thing .
C: I 'm sure it 's just wonderful .
D: Cool .
D: Cool .
C: Yes , T " Transcriber was developed with the scripting language TCL TK and C extensions .
D: Yeah .
C: It relies on the Snack sound extension , which allows support for most common audio formats . "
D: Cool .
B: Boy , the recognition on what you just mumbled is going to be really horrible .
C: Yeah .
C: It 's the French one .
D: Oh , cool !
B: Yeah .
D: OK .
D: There .
D: There you go .
C: I mean , no , I I D: I I love it when they
C: But I 've never downloaded it .
D: c
C: Someone mentioned it to me .
C: And that 's probably why they mentioned it to me ,
C: because they thought I would be excited because it 's TCL - based .
D: Did you see this one ?
D: The - , Did you see this one here ?
C: Oh " Deliverable D - three point one " ,
C: Oh yeah .
B: OK , So , so , it 's called " Transcriber " you said ?
D: OK .
B: gacks
C: Transcriber
D: Whoa !
A: So it 's very interest I mean , it 's interesting that one of the coordinators on that is Mark Liberman from the LDC
B: Mm - hmm .
D: Yeah .
A: Which means that I don't know what " coordinator " means in in terms of that .
A: I mean
B: Well , I think A: What what is what is what is this web page from ?
D: Well , I apparently , D: you know , I roam around on on topics like this
A: Sure .
D: And I think I got this off the U Penn
D: and it does in fact cite a French site ,
D: so um they have some sort of an arrangement .
B: Well , I just wrote down the French site
A: I see .
B: and I will check it and try to download it
A: Right .
B: And uh see what it looks like .
D: Good .
D: You - you can access it through um through the , uh , whatever D: I can't remember which aspect of U of U Penn I was following ,
A: Right .
D: but It must have been the LDC .
D: I I I bet you anything .
A: Yeah .
B: Yeah , they have a B: I vaguely recall that they have a pages uh tools page somewhere ,
D: Mm - hmm .
D: OK .
B: with like lists and lists and lists of uh various and assorted tools .
A: OK .
D: Yes .
D: Well there 's They have a special project , as I 'm remembering ,
D: and um , usually it doesn't deal with much that has to do with discourse ,
B: Mm - hmm .
D: but they uh they show up in resources .
B: So , Um , we 'll start with " Transcriber "
B: and if it looks like that 's not gonna do what we need , we 'll move on to the Mississippi State
B: and if it doesn't look like that 's going to work , we 'll look at something else .
D: I like that very much ,
D: and I and I like the idea of also doing one that 's tied in with these larger corp corpus projects .
B: OK .
D: So that , you know , the fact that , yeah , it 's U Penn and all that .
B: Mm - hmm .
C: Mmm .
A: Yeah .
D: Yeah .
A: Right .
B: Also , I wanted to mention just in passing that uh another thing that we 're going to want to start collecting is queries for the meetings .
B: So if over the next couple of days you find yourself wondering what we talked about in the meeting , write down the sort of query you 'd like to make .
D: Oh , good idea .
B: Do you understand what I mean ?
D: It 's like the PDA thing .
C: Mm - hmm .
B: So , imagine that we had Meeting Recorder all done , and you had one ,
B: what might you do with it ?
B: So ,
B: if they occur to you .
D: So , like " did the French system use Tcl ? "
B: Right .
B: That 's a good one .
A: Actually what I would have come up with was w w " What was the web address of that thing " ,
B: Send m So , if you could just email me them .
A: which we didn't B: Yeah , except we didn't record .
A: we didn't record that .
B: So .
A: Right .
B: It 's WWW dot ETCA dot FR .
C: That 's a fine question .
D: if anyone wants to know .
C: Wow .
D: But you could get it through the U Penn A: slash slash capital CTA slash , l
B: s l slash lots of other stuff , yeah .
A: Yeah .
A: Yeah .
C: So this thing , this uh deliverable D - three point one of the MATE project is a review of a lot of different tools .
A: Right .
D: Yes !
D: Yeah , there you go .
D: Exactly .
C: They 're actually , they seem to be more
C: the tool the main focus of the tools is you 've already got a transcription but you 're trying to tag the different turns transi transcriptions with uh discourse roles
C: and things like that .
A: I see .
C: But I mean a lot them are tools that will also do transcription as well .
C: And I could be wrong .
D: Well , my my impression
D: I I I really thought of these resources in the context of you you asking about time aligning the D: you know , What would you need to indicate
C: Right .
D: and were there tools for that
D: because um I suspect that would be uh pretty time intensive .
D: I also wanted to say , in terms of like disc you know , if there are discussions about intonation contours I do have a certain amount of background in that
D: and I really would be I 'd like to be involved in that .
A: Right .
A: No , right , I didn't mean to imply that that we that that we shouldn't discuss this now ,
D: Yeah .
A: but I 'm I 'm just saying that D: Oh , not right now ,
D: but I mean in the future .
A: Right .
D: So at this meeting with Liz I you know , I mean D: I I do I 'd like to I like that stuff .
A: Sure , sure .
B: So , when is she showing up ?
A: Well , I mean , they 're coming in April .
B: April .
B: OK .
A: Right .
A: But , um
A: You know , we we may or may not talk before then on that .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Um . I I think we won't probably talk until we have more data ,
A: I would think .
A: Right ?
B: Right , since we have almost none right now , let 's
A: Yeah .
B: We need to move forward from there .
B: But uh , yeah , I guess it 's O K .
B: And then , uh there 's also just the general question of will it handle multiple channels or should we just B: Dan and I spoke about this briefly ,
B: do we want to try to combine channels somehow to make the transcriber 's job easier ?
B: I was listening to some of it
B: and uh
B: like , if you just listen to the far P Z M the person sitting at this end of the table you can hardly hear at all .
B: on on the transcript ,
B: so there may be B: it may be worthwhile to at least try a little bit to combine the channels .
A: Right .
C: I Uh , the stuff I did , I combined pairs of these into stereo pairs ,
C: listened to them in stereo .
B: Huh .
C: And I was very impressed by how well you could hear separate speakers ,
B: Neat !
C: but I haven't I haven't done very extensive tests .
B: Oh , so , that would be interesting as well to do that .
A: Oh !
A: Yeah , cuz you 'd get you get C: you get a certain amount of spatial information .
A: Right !
C: It 's not It 's not consistent
C: but it 's Gives you some noise A: Wow .
B: Well , I bet if you used this one the two s most separated P Z
B: Well , maybe , maybe not .
C: Yeah , yeah ,
C: you 'd get get wide coverage .
A: Well , you would you would sound like you 'd have like in this e big big head .
B: Big ears .
C: Right .
C: Right .
C: But I mean But you would  you would You know , you 'd get good You 'd get good pick up at both ends of the table .
A: Right .
C: So .
B: Right .
A: Right .
B: OK ,
B: do we have anything else to talk about with transcribes ?
C: Well , what is what is the goal ?
C: again ?
C: We 're going to end up with some I mean , ultimately , we 're going to end up with transcriptions of these meetings .
B: And we 'll run a train a neural net
B: and create a recognizer
B: and do information retrieval
C: What ,
C: and then Then Then we 'll be done ,
B: and C: huh ?
B: Well , that 's my interest .
B: I mean , other people have different interests ,
C: Um .
B: so .
B: That 's what I want .
C: Of course , there are different kinds of recos
C: so we 're going to actually train a recognizer based on these uh , far - field mikes
B: Right .
C: cuz what we that 's the problem we 're trying to solve .
B: Right .
C: OK .
C: We need a lot of I mean B: Well , what the so , the reason we 're doing near field as well is if that doesn't work we wanna back we want some something that will work .
C: Well and also the near field will allow us to do the time alignment accurately .
B: Right .
B: Right .
C: Um .
D: So these are near near field ?
B: Mm - hmm .
C: Yeah .
D: there
D: OK .
C: Yeah .
C: Close mikes .
C: I mean I C: yeah , I feel like that What we 're actually going to do with these data is very unclear to me
B: Why ?
C: Well , because I don't think that 's a That 's not going to work .
B: Y
C: Right ?
C: OK . We 're going to get horrible performance on that .
B: The question is , " is it will it work well enough to do information retrieval ? "
C: Uh - huh .
B: So , w will the application the Meeting Recorder application , work ?
C: Yeah .
B: So , Is Part of the research is um " is fifty percent accuracy enough to do an useful information retrieval ? "
A: Well , part
B: It might be .
A: I
C: Well , we know the answer to that , but unfortunately , will we get fifty percent p accuracy ?
B: That 's right ,
B: Well , but you know we have to try .
C: Yeah .
B: We we we could simply not do the project .
B: But I think that 's a bad solution .
A: W We also need to d do this in terms of SmartKom ,
A: I mean , we 're collecting this as to build general English acoustic models .
A: that can be that they can say " OK here 's the vocabulary
A: and here 's the you know , here are the pronunciations . And go to it . "
C: And are they specifically far field mikes ?
A: Yeah .
A: Yeah .
B: Oh , I didn't know that .
C: OK .
D: You know , if if we were to add in addition , and I 'm offering this , um to the word level , also the uh , so , stressed words , within utterances
C: Yeah .