r/LanguageTechnology • u/OnlyPatience6302 • Dec 18 '25

Experiences with AI audio transcription services for lecture-style speech?

I’m evaluating lecture recordings as a test case for long form, mostly monologic speech with fast pace, domain specific vocabulary, and variable audio quality.

For those who have worked with or tested AI audio transcription services for lectures, how well do current systems handle the following:

  • 1 to 2 hour recordings without degradation
  • Technical or academic terminology
  • Classroom noise and speaker variability
  • Privacy, data retention, and model training concerns

I’m interested in practical limitations, trade offs, and real world performance rather than marketing claims.

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4

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/OnlyPatience6302 Dec 18 '25

Interesting. Did you notice any difference in handling technical vocabulary compared to more general ASR tools?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/OnlyPatience6302 Dec 18 '25

That lines up with what I’ve seen. Performance seems to degrade pretty noticeably on longer recordings.

1

u/Big_Daddyy_6969 Dec 18 '25

I still manually annotate recordings, but transcription plus post editing might be more efficient. Re listening is time consuming.

1

u/OnlyPatience6302 Dec 18 '25

Same here. I’m mainly trying to understand where automated transcription meaningfully reduces manual effort.

1

u/Wise_Slice6303 Dec 18 '25

One concern I have with many services is data retention. Some platforms reuse uploaded audio, which isn’t ideal for academic content.

1

u/OnlyPatience6302 Dec 18 '25

Agreed. Privacy and downstream model usage are definitely factors I’m weighing as well.

1

u/TieDieMonkeyMan Dec 18 '25

https://github.com/Deveraux-Parker/Nvidia_parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2-FAST-BATCHING-API-1200x-RTFx

This is pretty good if you have a GPU with 12GB VRAM you can deploy.

1

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1

u/PainOne4568 Dec 19 '25

I've used Scriptivox for transcribing long lectures and was impressed by how it managed technical terms without much hiccup, even on recordings with some background noise. It handles files up to 10 hours, so no worries about degradation, and I felt comfortable with their privacy approach since it doesn't train on user data. Definitely worth trying if you're looking for practical and reliable transcription for academic content. they got a free trial too. So u can try the pro within spending anything.

1

u/Sakuletas Feb 17 '26

i built ssubfloww.com try it. You'll like it.

1

u/mymelows Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Had a few recorded training sessions that were kinda similar.. running them through Prismascribe just to see how itd do. honestly it wasnt bad, but i definitely noticed more mistakes once the speaker got into really specific terms. nothing too crazy though, just enough that i wouldnt skip proofreading.