Respeaking is a common method used to create captions and subtitles in many countries…but what does it mean?
Respeaking is done by a professional “respeaker” to create captions or subtitles for live and pre-recorded programming. The respeaker listens to the program’s audio and repeats what is said into a special microphone (a.k.a speech silencer), being sure to add punctuation and labels to identify speakers and sounds. Speech recognition software is used to convert the speech to text that is used to create a subtitle file for the program. The speech silencer used by the respeaker helps to improve the accuracy of the captions by removing any background noise and confusing sounds.
This method of respeaking requires the use of highly trained professionals who speak clearly, quickly and accurately. Respeakers, or speech-to-text reporters, must listen to the audio, respeak the audio quickly and accurately, and then check the output to make any necessary corrections. All of this must be done quickly, especially for live programming where the captions must appear in time with the live audio.
Due to the vocal strain from respeaking, respeakers are only advised to do 15-minute stints at a time. For live programming, broadcasters must have a team of respeakers ready to rotate throughout the program to ensure that the subtitle accuracy doesn’t decline as the respeaker’s voice becomes strained.
ASR Technology & Respeaking
Advanced Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) technology is quickly becoming a top competitor to respeakers. As ASR technology becomes more advanced, the need for respeakers to respeak the audio more clearly for the speech recognition technology becomes less necessary as the technology can pick up the original audio with sufficient accuracy.
Some broadcasters, today, have stopped using respeakers to create captions for their programming and instead rely solely on ASR technology implemented into their systems to create captions for programs. Other broadcasters, in order to feel confident in their caption’s high accuracy and reliability, still use respeakers along with high-quality speech recognition technology.
Our team works together with broadcasters to help them determine which caption creation system is best suited for their situation.
If you’re interested in learning more about our captioning and subtitling software and solutions and how they can benefit your operation, learn more here or contact our team directly.
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