Additional Info on OSU Automated Captioning

After reading this DeafRead Link about new software that automates closed captioning developed by OSU, I asked my staff to contact them to find out more about the software. Here is their response (copied/pasted) . Names have been blotted out as I have not extended the courtesy of asking the person for permission to have this posted.

From: XXXX, XXXX
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:26 PM
Subject: RE: Automated Closed-Captioning software

Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately, the story in the OColly wasn’t completely accurate. (It think they might have been trying to pump OSU up a little higher that the complete truth.)

The truth is, I didn’t write all the software necessary for the full automation.

The full process actually takes three different software packages, mine is just one of them.

I am still writing and tweaking on the software and it will not be commercially available until I have had some time to write the help files, build a website for support, tweak in the installer a bit, etc. So, it might be 6 months or so before it’s really ready for prime time.

The three tools you will ultimately need to match OSU’s system are Autodesk Cleaner, BBN Avoke
STX (telephony version), and TransCapMedia AutoSpark.

The software I wrote is called AutoSpark. TransCapMedia is a company I am just now starting so
getting that company up and running might delay the process a little too.

Anyway, thanks for your interest, please give me a shout in six months or so and hopefully I will finally have it ready to go.

As far as sending you a copy to try, unfortunately having my part of the software won’t do you any good without at least having the software from BBN. Because, what really turns the audio into text, is the software from BBN. I just take their output and convert it into a caption. And, since I didn’t write their program, I unfortunately can’t give you a copy of it to try. And, I think the last I checked they wanted quite a bit of money for it. Sorry for the bad news.

I will try eventually try to work out a deal with BBN and Autodesk to see if I can create a server with everything already installed on it and ready to go that I could sell and use for demos and whatnot. So the good news is, down the road, I might eventually be able to help you out with a demo unit.

Thanks,

XXXXX
XXXXXX, Emerging Technology
Oklahoma State University Institute for Teaching and Learning Excellence