Project Manager: Uh it fell off . One , two , three , four , yeah , we're ready . Okay . Welcome to this second meeting . Um it's now quarter after twelve and we're given forty minutes um for this meeting . This is a meeting on functional design . Um and I wanna welcome you all and thank you all for doing some research in between . Um I did {disfmarker} took the minutes from the first meeting and I'll show them to you in a moment . Um I know each of you have a presentation and um in thinking about the forty minutes , I thought it would take only like three minutes for the previous minutes , um each of you having about seven minutes or maybe a little more , maybe a little less for your pre presentations and a little discussion , because there's {disfmarker} I happen to have been told there were some new project requirements and we have to make some uh decision on what functions it will have . Okay ? Is this ap everybody agree with this ?
Industrial Designer: Oops .
User Interface: Yes .
Marketing: Yes .
Project Manager: Okay . Um and after the meeting there'll be things to be done and as you can see it says we get to get lunch , um and then some more individual work and then putting minutes away and individual actions . {vocalsound} Um but uh now for the minutes of the first meeting . And go to that one . Um as you can see it was this earlier today . Um Kate , Steph , Sarah and myself in our four capacities were present . I opened the meeting , the product was developed uh and reviewed , and we talked about the financial end of it . Um and it had some implications , um the four million sales target and new ideas of not too many buttons , bright colours and some of the influence of the Japanese . And we closed early so you could then proceed with your research and getting your reports together for tod this meeting {vocalsound} Anybody have any questions on those minutes ? Are they complete , did they discuss everything that we covered last time ? 'Kay .
Industrial Designer: Uh I think so ,
Project Manager: Did I miss something ?
Industrial Designer: we we we talked about the the individual roles that we each had as well .
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
Project Manager: Yeah . I'm afraid I incorporated {vocalsound} that when I said who was present , but {disfmarker} yes , we did ,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay .
Project Manager: and we did a little bit of uh team building of uh of making the pictures ,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I accept the minutes .
Project Manager: but I didn't think those were appropriate to the minutes necessarily . So um as a group I think we've {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} they're accepting the minutes . And uh {disfmarker} okay .
Marketing: Is that what we're supposed to say ?
Project Manager: Yeah .
User Interface: Yeah , I do .
Project Manager: Good . Um , then we'll move to the three presentations . Okay ?
Marketing: Okay .
Project Manager: Okay . Mm we need to move this . Who wants to go f first ? {vocalsound} That's as far as it goes .
User Interface: Uh not really meant to touch those microphones . Oh it doesn't have any on , does it ? That's fine .
Marketing: Excellent , thank you .
Industrial Designer: Oy , big loop under the table .
Project Manager: She said we didn't need to screw it in .
Marketing: Okay . Okay , that looks good .
Project Manager: It's doing its thing . There we are .
Marketing: Alright . Thank you very much . Um . One of the the biggest issues I found about um from last meeting was the fact that we need to sell four million of these um remote controls and I think that this is an opportunity to really take Real Reaction in the direction of of similar {disfmarker} of handheld tools that have been used and are used by many of us and to kind of bring the remote control into the si same realm as an accessible um useful electronic device , as opposed to something that is lost in the couch and what have you . So um my main goal here is to re-envision the remote control in in this context and to think about menu functionality and current technology and the fact that it could be interactive with other tools . Um some of the research uh in the market has shown that people really are not happy with remote controls as they are now , and um that means we do need to make some decisions about what what keys or or buttons on the on the remote control to perhaps keep and and what ones to discard . And if we devote some energy into this , I think the um recent productions of Real Reaction , the I go everywhere power and the high definition D_V_D_ players {disfmarker} although it makes immediate sense to {vocalsound} have our remote control interact with these , I think we can also use this as a platform to make it interact with other tools . And um in fact I think the high definition D_V_D_ players and all of this will come along in the uh {disfmarker} will only benefit from the positive feedback {vocalsound} from our well designed tool . So again , most uh users really dislike the current look and feel of remote controls . Um {vocalsound} fifty percent {disfmarker} I think of all these uh numbers the most important is fifty percent of user say they only use ten percent of the buttons . And eighty percent of users , and if we think about this {vocalsound} there are a lot of uh television , D_V_D_ , stereo remote control users out there , eighty percent would spend more money on a remote control that looks fancy .
Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} can I ask where these figures come from , is this market research we've {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um it was market research and there were a hundred people in the room , so eighty out of a hundred said they would spend more money .
Project Manager: Now in between , as the Project Manager , they sent me an email from the powers that be
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm .
Project Manager: um that teletext is outdated um
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
Project Manager: and the internet is coming in as important , but that they want this remote control to only be for T_V_ um with incorporating the corporate image , colour and slogan .
Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Well I think we can {disfmarker} I I think we can really focus on this remote and and again bring the Real Reaction um brand in in and and get some positive marketing for our other tools , even if we directly don't um advertise {vocalsound} for the I go everywhere line .
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: So an interesting um element was the would you pay more for speech recognition question . So these market research uh uh questionnaires {vocalsound} looked into your your uh concern about technology
Project Manager: Hmm .
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and s specifically wanted to find out information about speech recognition .
Project Manager: Okay .
Marketing: Now the early adopters , those of us who grew up with technology and uh luck lucky for us have the uh cash to to pay for it , the young age group without the mortgages and responsibilities , ninety one percent of them {vocalsound} would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Very interesting , I I leave this up to the group to decide if we wanna use this uh if {disfmarker} and you know , the the designers ,
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: but ninety one percent , fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Is that a large enough target market to target it ?
Marketing: Well , I I I think {disfmarker} especially in terms of growth , I think this would be a very smart group to target . I mean s three quarters of the next age group , twenty five to thirty five are interested , and uh with the technologies improving , if we can get these uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: In real numbers , does the ninety one percent and the seventy six percent translate to ex in excess of the four million ?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . To {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um yes .
Project Manager: Or eight million .
Marketing: Yes . But would you pay more and does it work and is it approachable and and did I know that it was it was an {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm .
Marketing: that's a that's a very good question .
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah .
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know if speech recognition should be um should be included ,
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: but I think it's an interesting {disfmarker} I think that maybe shows more about uh being open to technology .
Project Manager: Mm .
User Interface: Uh it definitely needs uh a lot more research
Marketing: Shall I go back ?
User Interface: on like how much more it would be and any , you know , existing examples ,
Marketing: Yeah , yeah .
User Interface: and what reactions to them have been , and that sort of thing .
Marketing: Yeah .
Industrial Designer: How d I'm wondering how how ou how our target price compares with the the typical price of these things . I expect an Industrial Designer should know that , but if we're aiming to to build this thing for twelve Euros fifty , um is that a lot or a little ?
Marketing: Exactly . I mean I I I uh did not receive any information on that , but I think the competition , sussing out what other people are doing and what's in the pipeline is very very important , because um there is a question about do you want an L_C_D_ screen and and that wasn't responded to , but uh some of the larger remotes do have screens where you can navigate , you know , so it turns into something {disfmarker} uh perhaps you all have seen uh the Osbournes where Ozzy Osbourne is is attempting to manage his super entertainment system with something that looks like a uh a small tray .
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh surely he's in the wrong age group .
Marketing: You know ,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: it's {disfmarker} I a and I think , you know {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: He must be w one of a s small population . {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no ,
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: you {disfmarker} Kate , you're exactly right there . {vocalsound} But I think the key is to get the early adopters , people who are familiar with technology and and uh they'll be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But we're not looking at whether they're early adopters on that screen ,
Marketing: Uh , mm .
Project Manager: that's looking at age groups .
Marketing: Exactly . I {vocalsound} yes , and I'm making and I'm making the the uh uh leap that people who are familiar {disfmarker} younger people are l are more familiar with technology than than older people . Or comfortable ,
Project Manager: Leap . {vocalsound} Hmm . Mm .
Marketing: you know , um so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay , you had the other power channel .
Marketing: I think the most important thing is an attractive streamlined remote control and to be extraordinarily reductionist , power , channel , volume and everything else is is uh up to the designers . {vocalsound} And this is this is also supported by the market research .
Project Manager: Okay .
Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . That's my contribution .
Project Manager: Alright . And we'll turn to the next presentation . I think she said we don't need to screw it in , just stick it in . And then press , what ? F F_N_ and F_ eight . Next to the control button on the bottom , and then F_ eight at the top .
User Interface: Yeah , press them .
Project Manager: And then w be patient . {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah , here we go .
Project Manager: Tada .
Industrial Designer: And if you want it to go into slide show mode , it's that little button there .
User Interface: Can I not just uh do each one in order ?
Industrial Designer: I you can if you like , it it {disfmarker} that that just sets it up to do a p a p
Project Manager: There we are . Yay .
User Interface: That ?
Industrial Designer: no that one , that one there .
User Interface: That ?
Industrial Designer: Left , left a bit , left a bit , that one , yep .
User Interface: That ? Right , technical functions design . Uh well I think first off , basically I do agree with what Sarah has defined as as uh your personal preferences,yeah . I think we need uh a more streamlined volume with no extraneous functions . So my method was to look at the existing remotes and what functions they have . And what we all need to discuss is whether we want these functions uh pretty much the same as what existing remotes have . If we can build on this with the speech recognition , that's not something I'd thought about at all , but it's also something we can discuss .
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: Um and and I presume we can miss out the functions really to to a video or D_V_D_ remote control , if this is only gonna be a , you know , satellite , cable , T_V_ remote control .
Project Manager: T_V_ only .
User Interface: So these are two models of existing remote controls . Uh the one on the left seems to be a fairly uh standard universal remote control .
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ugh .
User Interface: It has fast-forward , stop , play , all relating to movies . It also has {disfmarker} seems to have channel up and channel down , which is which is more what you'd expect from a , you know , like a Sky or cable remote control
Project Manager: Hmm .
User Interface: where you've got hundreds of channels instead of a merely terrestrial one . Uh but I think we should be looking more along the lines of the one on the right , which has {disfmarker} it also has play , stop and pause and everything , I don't think we need them at all . I think we just need channel selection , volume up , volume down and I think an an enter function where you can access {disfmarker} it's not like teletext , but along the same lines , access things on the screen . Uh not related to the internet one that you mentioned , because that'd be far outside our budget and what we want this to do .
Project Manager: Mm . And exceed the requirements they're expecting of us .
User Interface: So it really exceed the requirements , 'cause the requirements really are just {disfmarker} want to be able to change channels and functions , which is more a text on the screen thing than uh than actual buttons
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: o I was thinking something {disfmarker} some smooth , sleek , little remote control with big user-friendly buttons and uh a menu that you can access .
Project Manager: Alright .
User Interface: Uh but then I do think we need to discuss the speech um recognition possibility .
Project Manager: Okay . Any uh thing else you wanna add ?
User Interface: No .
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: But we could go back to the pictures of the {disfmarker} uh , what're they called ? The pictures of the remote controls and possibly discuss what we think about them ,
Marketing: Or if {disfmarker}
User Interface: but {vocalsound} maybe should hear what Kate has to say first .
Marketing: Yeah .
Project Manager: Yeah . Let's hear what Kate has to say .
User Interface: Okay then .
Marketing: Maybe afterwards we could do a uh whiteboard with that {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the one on the right as a as a basis .
Project Manager: Hmm .
Marketing: Whiteboard session .
Project Manager: I think the white {disfmarker} that one on the right is , as well as less cluttered , {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: Definitely less cluttered and {disfmarker} I mean but still it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's there
User Interface: Sorry
Project Manager: but it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: I was just {disfmarker} I'll just uh resume something else I was gonna say .
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The the style of these is terrible .
Project Manager: Yeah .
User Interface: {vocalsound} I I I really think we need to uh not only possibly even materials , like the type of plastic used , but everything including size and shape of buttons , positioning of buttons , the actual shape of the hand-held device , colours , just every e yeah , everything to do with this has to be revolutionised . {vocalsound}
Marketing: The ergonomics , the way it fits in your {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm .
Marketing: Yeah .
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: So that's that for now .
Industrial Designer: Cheers . Mm , I haven't actually got a display on my screen .
Project Manager: Okay .
Industrial Designer: Still , I'll do without that . Okay um , now I wanna bring us down to earth again I'm afraid and talk about the actual practicalities of how the thing needs to work . {vocalsound} Um oh and this is the methodology I used in preparing for this meeting . Um basically I've been doing a little bit of web-based research , {vocalsound} and if I had a design team , I would've been discussing my ideas with 'em . But the the net result is that I've come up with a first cut for the working design that I'd like to discuss with you . So , let's go back to what the basic function of a remote control is . It's for sending a message , um typically um via infrared . {vocalsound} And the the basic components we've got to build in for our twelve Euros fifty are um an energy source , the user interface and {disfmarker} which will um in incorporate um an integrated circuit that actually composes the message um based on what the {disfmarker} which buttons the user presses , we turn that into a message , um and then we need a sending mechanism to send it to the receiver . Now I would have hoped {disfmarker} I think that's my only slide actually , yeah . I would have have hoped to um do you a pretty PowerPoint slide of um my first cut design , but unfortunately the technology defeated me , so if you'll bear with me I'll do it on the whiteboard . {vocalsound} So we want an energy source which is there . And we've got to think about what that might be .
Project Manager: Hmm-mm .
Industrial Designer: Uh we obviously don't want wires on this thing . Uh typically it would be a battery , but I'm open to suggestions . {vocalsound} Um and then we have the the user interface . Oops . And the main components in there are the the th the chip that actually has the intelligence of the machine that translates button presses into a message , which it then transfers to some sending mechanism , which encodes it and sends the message to the receiver . So those are the basic things that we've got to get in for our twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} Thank you .
Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Right . But those things {disfmarker} as long as we can get those components , the block , that that rectangle for the user interface , is where the user comes in of {disfmarker} what what does it look like ? What do the buttons look like ? Uh what does it feel like ? That's where the user interface is really coming into its own .
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm .
Project Manager: The technical end is what's actually gonna be in there , but also it has to be easy enough to change or repair if something goes wrong . For example the battery energy source or um what if the chip , for whatever reason , breaks down after a certain amount of time , do you just replace it ? Um is there any um {disfmarker} because it may be in the same area with several other user interfaces , like for D_V_D_s , movies , whatever . Um does it have to have a a way of being segregated from the others , in a different frequency or something ?
Industrial Designer: Well I may be wrong here , but I'd been thinking of this device as being a a cheap mass-produced device . We're trying to sell four million of 'em ,
Project Manager: Mm .
Industrial Designer: um that's that's , you know , that's almost one in every tenth household or whatever it is . Um and I hadn't thought of it as being a reparable thing ,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay .
Industrial Designer: you just {disfmarker} if it goes wrong you chuck it out , and that's why I'm a bit concerned . I like the idea of speech recognition , that's a great idea , but I'm not convinced we can put it into this box for the price that we need {disfmarker} gonna need to hit .
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: Whoop .
Marketing: Do we have um ki some idea of how much it would cost to create a device that has these basic elements ?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Isn't that your job ?
Marketing: Because then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh .
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No ,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right .
Marketing: the chip composer marketing . Oh no , the chip composer sender .
Project Manager: Mm . What they cost .
Industrial Designer: Um , I'm I'm I'm hoping that my personal coach is gonna {vocalsound} give me some advice on that , if you're asking me ,
Marketing: I I don't believe I know , um .
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay .
Marketing: Okay .
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Be because then we would ha ha figure out how much we had to play with in terms of user interface and this look and feel idea .
User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm .
Industrial Designer: Yeah .
User Interface: It does it does seem as if we're just to do something really simple and mass-produced , the {disfmarker} which is pretty much the same as these existing models ,
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: just maybe a little bit more inspired ,
Marketing: Inspired ?
User Interface: but basically just the same .
Marketing: Mm .
User Interface: Although what what uh suddenly came into my head is , you know how they always take two A_A_ batteries which which is really not very efficient at all . Could it be possible to have uh , you know , like a rechargeable internal battery , like , well , like an M_P_ three player does ? With that you could jus or a mobile phone or whatever .
Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm .
User Interface: You could {disfmarker} you know , you just plug into a power source for a couple of hours , and then it's recharged for ages and ages and ages , and you don't have to worry with replacing A_A_ batteries ,
Marketing: Well
User Interface: which are {disfmarker}
Marketing: that has another element , which is if every time you're done using the remote you put it on a charger , then you {disfmarker} then it has a place .
Project Manager: Mm .
User Interface: You'd never need uh batteries would y uh yeah .
Marketing: Yeah , but it also has a place ,
User Interface: And it's not stuck down the back of the sofa .
Marketing: so {disfmarker} exactly .
Project Manager: Mm .
User Interface: {vocalsound} But then again I d I don't know if this is within our price range or not .
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a really good idea .
Industrial Designer: Well I uh think that's a very interesting idea , but um I'm not a very good industrial designer and I don't know much about what these things cost . {vocalsound} I'll do some research for the next meeting .
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well it's better than my idea about solar , probably . {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh yeah .
Industrial Designer: Well solar may not be so good when you're watching T_V_ in the night ,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah .
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm .
User Interface: Well it is just so annoying how {disfmarker}
Marketing: Depen
Project Manager: It would have to sor store up the energy
Marketing: Mm . Yeah .
Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess .
Project Manager: and then use it . Solar can do that .
Industrial Designer: We may be talking quite heavy then .
Project Manager: M yeah , that would be too heavy
Marketing: Yeah .
Project Manager: and it'd cost too much .
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: No , but just a rechargeable internal battery would probably {disfmarker} I mean it might cost more to {disfmarker} at first to develop and to install ,
Marketing: Mm-hmm
User Interface: but for long-term use it'll be so much more convenient and economic than fiddling around trying to replace chunky A_A_ batteries and not having any in your kitchen drawer
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: and
Industrial Designer: So do you think we might make that a selling point if it was something that we found we could afford to develop ?
User Interface: you know f
Marketing: Definitely ,
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: 'cause I'm thinking in terms of um uh {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} loss and breakage of um remotes , how much of that is is to do with it not really having a uh a home , a um a nest , a place to live ,
User Interface: Mm .
Project Manager: Mm .
User Interface: Sort of have its little dock that you could put it in .
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: exactly .
Project Manager: Yeah .
Marketing: So if you can dock it , um you know , you could s argue that this is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And the dock could look very fancy and that could be your inspiration of having it looking decent .
Marketing: Exactly .
User Interface: Still I don't know if it's quite within our price range .
Project Manager: Hmm .
Marketing: Mm . 'Cause you are talking about another component , like another piece of hardware .
User Interface: Yeah .
Project Manager: Yeah . Okay .
Marketing: Mm .
Project Manager: Are we agreed as to what our target group is though ? Pretty much , so that we'd be looking for the younger end .
Marketing: Well I I brought up some {disfmarker} exactly , but I think you raised some good questions about are there enough of these people out there , or are they making purchasing decisions ?
Industrial Designer: Mm .
Project Manager: Mm .
Industrial Designer: Yeah ,
Marketing: You know ,
Industrial Designer: I was wondering that ,
Marketing: these are the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I ag I agree that there there're people with uh how can I put it , more money than sense and who are liable to buy {vocalsound} something new ,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I s usually put more money than brains .
Marketing: Yeah , exactly .
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Bu but what I was gonna say was , although they they may be buying um , you know , personal music devices and all that ,
Marketing: Oh oh oh I'll make a note of that , Kate . Good , good comment .
Industrial Designer: are they necessarily buying T_V_ remote controls ? Because they probably live in a household that has a T_V_ if they're at the lower end of the age range ,
Marketing: Yeah .
Industrial Designer: I don't know .
User Interface: Yeah .
Marketing: {vocalsound} It might be good to know um uh who , you know , who's actually buying televisions and are we in a uh uh s region where people have more than one television in a home ?
Industrial Designer: Mm . I think we've got a big hill to climb here , haven't we ? I mean we've gotta persuade people who've got a remote control 'cause it came with the telly that they should buy our product instead .
Marketing: Yeah .
Project Manager: Mm . Yeah .
Marketing: Yeah .
Project Manager: Or do we s make sure that it goes to the man through the manufacturer ? We sell to the manufacturer as the remote that goes with it .
Industrial Designer: Right , good point . Yeah , yeah okay , yeah .
User Interface: Yeah .
Marketing: Yeah .
Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , good point .
User Interface: That's probably more what it is .
Marketing: Yeah .
Project Manager: What would be a more efficient way of doing it ?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , and and some of our D_V_D_ players incidentally have them , because we have the relationship with our own department , but moreover we need to to go for the the manufacturers .
Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Right .
User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not gonna get any resolutions by the end of the day ,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably not .
User Interface: are we ?
Marketing: Mm .
Project Manager: Um the other thing that we're supposed to do is make decision on our functions . Our functions , we've so far decided , I think , that power , channel , volume make it attractive . Um it has to have an enter key and of course the number keys . It has to have big user-friendly buttons and sh n {vocalsound} definitely we wanna be inspired that the current {vocalsound} styles are just plain awful .
User Interface: Yeah .
Marketing: Do we need {disfmarker} um let me {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Is that agreeable to everyone ?
Marketing: Br actually , um
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm .
Marketing: the enter key {disfmarker} I have a chart here that I didn't include . Um
Project Manager: Mm-hmm .
Industrial Designer: Do you want the gizmo ?
Marketing: yeah , which might {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Throw some light on that .
Marketing: Th yeah , th those are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} felt like had a lot of charts . {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um actually we're , you know , we are almost a half hour out of the forty minutes , so we have to get close to finishing . {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay , I I {disfmarker} my only comment is I think maybe um we could somehow include an enter key in like a power key if power power was enter and pow that was my only {disfmarker} just really in terms of streamlining .
Project Manager: Ah . Mm-hmm . Okay . Enter , power as a s oh um a sum simultaneous key .
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Exactly . Again , you know ,
Project Manager: Is that okay with you ?
Marketing: thinking of menus or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Sorry ,
Project Manager: Would that {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: H how does that work ?
User Interface: I was miles away .
Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} so so how does that work ,
User Interface: I was re I was reading the chart to be honest .
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um well
Project Manager: uh-huh .
Industrial Designer: how do you avoid switching the thing off when you actually wanna press enter ?
Marketing: if you're pressing enter , the the thing would already be on , and so maybe um when you press power , initially it turns it on , press power again and use that as an enter um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then you'd have to have an off te off key .
Marketing: so you press power after you've um {disfmarker} well I was thinking maybe you {disfmarker} to turn it off you'd have to press power twice in succession ,
Industrial Designer: Okay , yep , mm-hmm .
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: and maybe power follows something like a channel up channel down power , and then that would make that choice .
Industrial Designer: It's not getting a bit complicated ? Could granny do this ,
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: or are we just not aiming at granny ?
Marketing: Or y yeah . Or something that has a a turning dial , where at the far end is on or off . {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's got an iPod then ? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah ,
Project Manager: Mm . Okay .
Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} um I wish . Anyway , uh {vocalsound} that was the only comment about um some of the the decisions people have made , what's most important .
Project Manager: Mm .
Marketing: It's definitely channel , volume , power .
User Interface: Yeah , things like screen settings and audio settings , I would generally do them on the actual television itself ,
Marketing: Exactly .
User Interface: like here you have a you know , a little flap th with a little control panel on the actual box itself .
Marketing: Exactly .
User Interface: I I wouldn't know how to do it using a remote control ,
Marketing: Yeah .
User Interface: so um I would say that they are definitely less relevant .
Project Manager: Okay . So
Marketing: Okay , well . Thanks for looking at that .
Project Manager: I guess easy to use is the other thing that we want 'em to be able to do .
Marketing: Mm-hmm .
Project Manager: As you said , you know , don't make it too hard for the granny . {vocalsound}
Marketing: We don't wanna outsmart {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I just joined that set last week .
Marketing: Hmm .
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} first grandchild arrived .
Marketing: Congratulations . {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh .
Project Manager: Um so are we agreed then of those things ? And let's go back to agenda
Marketing: D
Project Manager: and hook me up . Mm . This oughta be fun . It probably won't go the first time , it'll probably be like a g mess . Come on . Uh it lost it off here . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh you're fine . It's fine .
Project Manager: No , it was up there , but I couldn't see it down here . Mm . This time it should be both . There we go .
Industrial Designer: How do you do that ? How do you make it do both ?
Project Manager: Um you have to keep doing the financi the the F_N_ and F_ eight to {disfmarker} five minutes to finish ,
Industrial Designer: Ah okay , it toggles through ,
Project Manager: thank you a lot for telling me .
Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um right ,
Marketing: I think you have to cycle through .
Industrial Designer: Yeah .
Project Manager: we're ready to close . Um {gap} will be completed q questionnaire , um then we'll have some time for individual work to continue our research um and I'll put some minutes of this meeting together . Um your individual assignments are for um Kate to do the components , for you , Steph , to do the user interface and for you the trend-watching . Um and each of us will get help from our coach . Are we agreed to get ourselves together and then have lunch ?
User Interface: Yes .
Project Manager: Okay .
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds good .
Project Manager: Then that's the end of this meeting . And I hope that's good enough for her {vocalsound} to tell her that's the end . Okay ?
Industrial Designer: Okay .
User Interface: We didn't come to any sort of decision on the functions though .
Project Manager: Well I think I went over the functions and wrote them down and marked them .
User Interface: Alright , well that's fine then .
Project Manager: Um that's what I went over and nobody was objecting to them .
Marketing: Okay . Um and you'd mentioned {disfmarker} I I was just gonna say , could you reiterate the new project requirements ,
Project Manager: Okay .
Marketing: because it {disfmarker} they were {disfmarker} it has to be for a T_V_ , just to keep myself {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um the teletext is outdated ,
Industrial Designer: So we're still in meeting , aren't we ? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: the internet is important ,
Marketing: Yeah , I think I've {disfmarker}
Project Manager: it's only to be for a T_V_ and it must include the corporate image , colour and slogan um
Marketing: Okay .
Project Manager: which I think is more in the user uh range , with Steph .
User Interface: Mm . Sorry , what what actually are these {disfmarker} is that the yellow and black ?
Project Manager: It doesn't tell me .
Marketing: Mm .
User Interface: From their {disfmarker} I'll just use it from their website .
Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay ?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay .
Industrial Designer: Okay .
Marketing: Right . Thank you .


Postdoc B: Alright .
Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker}
Grad F: Um , so I wanted to discuss digits briefly , but that won't take too long .
Professor C: Oh good . Right . OK , agenda items , Uh , we have digits , What else we got ?
PhD A: New version of the presegmentation .
Professor C: New version of presegmentation .
Postdoc B: Um , do we wanna say something about the , an update of the , uh , transcript ?
PhD G: Yeah , why don't you summarize the {disfmarker}
Professor C: Update on transcripts .
PhD G: And I guess that includes some {disfmarker} the filtering for the , the ASI refs , too .
Postdoc B: Mmm .
Professor C: Filtering for what ?
PhD G: For the references that we need to go from the {disfmarker} the {pause} fancy transcripts to the sort of {nonvocalsound} brain - dead .
Postdoc B: It 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be {disfmarker} basically it 'll be a re - cap of a meeting that we had jointly this morning .
Professor C: Uh - huh .
PhD G: With Don , as well .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: Got it . Anything else more pressing than those things ? So {disfmarker} So , why don't we just do those . You said yours was brief , so {disfmarker}
Grad F: OK . OK well , the , w uh as you can see from the numbers on the digits we 're almost done . The digits goes up to {pause} about four thousand . Um , and so , uh , we probably will be done with the TI - digits in , um , another couple weeks . um , depending on how many we read each time . So there were a bunch that we skipped . You know , someone fills out the form and then they 're not at the meeting and so it 's blank . Um , but those are almost all filled in as well . And so , once we 're {disfmarker} it 's done it would be very nice to train up a recognizer and actually start working with this data .
PhD D: So we 'll have a corpus that 's the size of TI - digits ?
Grad F: And so {disfmarker} One particular test set of TI - digits .
PhD D: Test set , OK .
Grad F: So , I {disfmarker} I extracted , Ther - there was a file sitting around which people have used here as a test set . It had been randomized and so on
PhD D:
Grad F: and that 's just what I used to generate the order . of these particular ones .
PhD D: Oh ! Great . Great .
Professor C: So , I 'm impressed by what we could do , Is take the standard training set for TI - digits , train up with whatever , you know , great features we think we have , uh for instance , and then test on uh this test set .
Grad F: Um {disfmarker}
Professor C: And presumably uh it should do reasonably well on that , and then , presumably , we should go to the distant mike , and it should do poorly .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor C: And then we should get really smart over the next year or two , and it {disfmarker} that should get better .
Grad F: Right . And inc increase it by one or two percent , yeah .
Professor C: Yeah , {vocalsound} Yeah .
Grad F: Um , but , in order to do that we need to extract out the actual digits .
Professor C: Right .
Grad F: Um , so that {disfmarker} the reason it 's not just a transcript is that there 're false starts , and misreads , and miscues and things like that . And so I have a set of scripts and X Waves where you just select the portion , hit R , um , it tells you what the next one should be , and you just look for that . You know , so it {disfmarker} it 'll put on the screen , " The next set is six nine , nine two two " . And you find that , and , hit the key and it records it in a file in a particular format .
Professor C: So is this {disfmarker}
Grad F: And so the {disfmarker} the question is , should we have the transcribers do that or should we just do it ? Well , some of us . I 've been do I 've done , eight meetings , something like that , just by hand . Just myself , rather . So it will not take long . Um {disfmarker}
Professor C: Uh , what {disfmarker} what do you think ?
Postdoc B: My feeling is that we discussed this right before coffee and I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a fine idea partly because , um , it 's not un unrelated to their present skill set , but it will add , for them , an extra dimension , it might be an interesting break for them . And also it is contributing to the , uh , c composition of the transcript cuz we can incorporate those numbers directly and it 'll be a more complete transcript . So I 'm {disfmarker} I think it 's fine , that part .
Grad F: There is {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker}
Professor C: So you think it 's fine to have the transcribers do it ?
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: Yeah , OK .
Grad F: There 's one other small bit , which is just entering the information which at s which is at the top of this form , onto the computer , to go along with the {disfmarker} where the digits are recorded automatically .
PhD D: Good .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: And so it 's just , you know , typing in name , times {disfmarker} time , date , and so on . Um , which again either they can do , but it is , you know , firing up an editor , or , again , I can do . Or someone else can do .
Postdoc B: And , that , you know , I 'm not , that {disfmarker} that one I 'm not so sure if it 's into the {disfmarker} the , things that , I , wanted to use the hours for , because the , the time that they 'd be spending doing that they wouldn't be able to be putting more words on .
Professor C: Mmm .
Postdoc B: But that 's really your choice , it 's your {disfmarker}
PhD D: So are these two separate tasks that can happen ? Or do they have to happen at the same time before {disfmarker}
Grad F: No they don't have {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} you have to enter the data before , you do the second task , but they don't have to happen at the same time .
PhD D: OK .
Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's just I have a file whi which has this information on it , and then when you start using my scripts , for extracting the times , it adds the times at the bottom of the file . And so , um , I mean , it 's easy to create the files and leave them blank , and so actually we could do it in either order .
PhD D: Oh , OK .
Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of nice to have the same person do it just as a double - check , to make sure you 're entering for the right person . But , either way .
Professor C: Yeah . Yeah just by way of uh , uh , a uh , order of magnitude , uh , um , we 've been working with this Aurora , uh data set . And , uh , the best score , on the , nicest part of the data , that is , where you 've got training and test set that are basically the same kinds of noise and so forth , uh , is about , uh {disfmarker} I think the best score was something like five percent , uh , error , per digit .
PhD A: Per digit .
Professor C: So , that {disfmarker}
Grad F: Per digit .
Professor C: You 're right . So if you were doing {pause} ten digit , uh , recognition , {vocalsound} you would really be in trouble . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} The point there , and this is uh car noise uh , uh things , but {disfmarker} but real {disfmarker} real situation ,
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: well , " real " , Um , the {disfmarker} uh there 's one microphone that 's close , that they have as {disfmarker} as this sort of thing , close versus distant . Uh but in a car , instead of {disfmarker} instead of having a projector noise it 's {disfmarker} it 's car noise . Uh but it wasn't artificially added to get some {disfmarker} some artificial signal - to - noise ratio . It was just people driving around in a car . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's an indication , uh that was with , many sites competing , and this was the very best score and so forth , so . More typical numbers like
PhD D: Although the models weren't , that good , right ? I mean , the models are pretty crappy ?
Professor C: You 're right . I think that we could have done better on the models , but the thing is that we got {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is the kind of typical number , for all of the , uh , uh , things in this task , all of the , um , languages . And so I {disfmarker} I think we 'd probably {disfmarker} the models would be better in some than in others . Um , so , uh . Anyway , just an indication once you get into this kind of realm even if you 're looking at connected digits it can be pretty hard .
PhD D: Hmm .
Postdoc B: Hmm . It 's gonna be fun to see how we , compare at this . Very exciting . s @ @ .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: How did we do on the TI - digits ?
Grad F: Well the prosodics are so much different s it 's gonna be , strange . I mean the prosodics are not the same as TI - digits , for example .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much of effect that will have .
PhD D: H how do {disfmarker}
PhD G: What do you mean , the prosodics ?
Grad F: Um , just what we were talking about with grouping . That with these , the grouping , there 's no grouping at all , and so it 's just {disfmarker} the only sort of discontinuity you have is at the beginning and the end .
PhD G: So what are they doing in Aurora , are they reading actual phone numbers ,
Grad F: Aurora I don't know . I don't know what they do in Aurora .
PhD G: or , a {disfmarker} a digit at a time , or {disfmarker} ?
Professor C: Uh , I 'm not sure how {disfmarker}
PhD G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker}
Professor C: no , no I mean it 's connected {disfmarker} it 's connected , uh , digits ,
PhD G: Connected .
Professor C: yeah . But .
Grad F: But {disfmarker} Right .
PhD G: So there 's also the {disfmarker} not just the prosody but the cross {disfmarker} the cross - word modeling is probably quite different .
PhD D: H How
Grad F: But in TI - digits , they 're reading things like zip codes and phone numbers and things like that ,
PhD G: Right .
PhD D: do we do on TI - digits ?
Grad F: so it 's gonna be different . I don't remember . I mean , very good , right ?
Professor C: Yeah , I mean we were in the .
Grad F: One and a half percent , two percent , something like that ?
Professor C: Uh , I th no I think we got under a percent , but it was {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but I mean . The very best system that I saw in the literature was a point two five percent or something that somebody had at {disfmarker} at Bell Labs , or . Uh , but . But , uh , sort of pulling out all the stops .
Grad F: Oh really ?
Postdoc B: s @ @ . It s strikes me that there are more {disfmarker} each of them is more informative because it 's so , random ,
Grad F: OK . Alright .
PhD D: Hmm .
Professor C: But I think a lot of systems sort of get half a percent , or three - quarters a percent ,
Grad F: Right .
Professor C: and we 're {disfmarker} we 're in there somewhere .
Grad F: But that {disfmarker} I mean it 's really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's close - talking mikes , no noise , clean signal , just digits , I mean , every everything is good .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: It 's the beginning of time in speech recognition .
Grad F: Yes , exactly .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: And we 've only recently got it to anywhere near human .
PhD G: It 's like the , single cell , you know , it 's the beginning of life ,
PhD D: Pre - prehistory .
PhD G: yeah .
Grad F: And it 's still like an order of magnitude worse than what humans do .
PhD G: Right .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: So .
Professor C: When {disfmarker} When they 're wide awake , yeah . Um ,
Grad F: Yeah . After coffee .
Professor C: after coffee , you 're right . Not after lunch .
Grad F: OK , so , um , what I 'll do then is I 'll go ahead and enter , this data . And then , hand off to Jane , and the transcribers to do the actual extraction of the digits .
Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . One question I have that {disfmarker} that I mean , we wouldn't know the answer to now but might , do some guessing , but I was talking before about doing some model modeling of arti uh , uh , marking of articulatory , features , with overlap and so on .
Grad F: Hmm .
Professor C: And , and , um , On some subset . One thought might be to do this uh , on {disfmarker} on the digits , or some piece of the digits . Uh , it 'd be easier , uh , and so forth . The only thing is I 'm a little concerned that maybe the kind of phenomena , in w i i The reason for doing it is because the {disfmarker} the argument is that certainly with conversational speech , the stuff that we 've looked at here before , um , just doing the simple mapping , from , um , the phone , to the corresponding features that you could look up in a book , uh , isn't right . It isn't actually right . In fact there 's these overlapping processes where some voicing some up and then some , you know , some nasality is {disfmarker} comes in here , and so forth . And you do this gross thing saying " Well I guess it 's this phone starting there " . So , uh , that 's the reasoning . But , It could be that when we 're reading digits , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's for such a limited set , that maybe {disfmarker} maybe that phenomenon doesn't occur as much . I don't know . Di - an anybody {disfmarker} ? {pause} Do you have any {disfmarker} ? {pause} Anybody have any opinion about that ,
Postdoc B: and that people might articulate more , and you that might end up with more {disfmarker} a closer correspondence .
Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah .
Grad F: Yeah {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree .
PhD D: Sort of less predictability ,
Grad F: That {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker}
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: and {disfmarker} You hafta {disfmarker}
Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Would , this corpus really be the right one to even try that on ?
PhD G: Well it 's definitely true that , when people are , reading , even if they 're re - reading what , they had said spontaneously , that they have very different patterns . Mitch showed that , and some , dissertations have shown that .
Professor C: Right .
PhD G: So the fact that they 're reading , first of all , whether they 're reading in a room of , people , or rea you know , just the fact that they 're reading will make a difference .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: And , depends what you 're interested in .
Professor C: See , I don't know . So , may maybe the thing will be do {disfmarker} to take some very small subset , I mean not have a big , program , but take a small set , uh , subset of the conversational speech and a small subset of the digits , and {pause} look and {disfmarker} and just get a feeling for it . Um , just take a look . Really .
Postdoc B: H That could {disfmarker} could be an interesting design , too , cuz then you 'd have the com the comparison of the , uh , predictable speech versus the less predictable speech
Professor C: Cuz I don't think anybody is , I at least , I don't know , of anybody , uh , well , I don't know , {vocalsound} the answers .
PhD D: Hey .
Professor C: Yeah .
Postdoc B: and maybe you 'd find that it worked in , in the , case of the pr of the , uh , non - predictable .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: Hafta think about , the particular acoustic features to mark , too , because , I mean , some things , they wouldn't be able to mark , like , uh , you know , uh , tense lax .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Some things are really difficult . You know ,
Postdoc B: Well .
PhD D: just listening .
Grad F: M I think we can get Ohala in to , give us some advice on that .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc B: Also I thought you were thinking of a much more restricted set of features , that {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was , like he said , {vocalsound} I was gonna bring John in and ask John what he thought .
Postdoc B: Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah .
Professor C: Right . But I mean you want {disfmarker} you want it be restrictive but you also want it to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have coverage .
Grad F: Right .
Postdoc B: Yeah
Professor C: You know i you should . It should be such that if you , if you , uh , if you had o um , all of the features , determined that you {disfmarker} that you were uh ch have chosen , that that would tell you , uh , in the steady - state case , uh , the phone . So , um .
Postdoc B: OK .
Grad F: Even , I guess with vowels that would be pretty hard , wouldn't it ? To identify actually , you know , which one it is ?
Postdoc B: It would seem to me that the points of articulation would be m more , g uh , I mean that 's {disfmarker} I think about articulatory features , I think about , points of articulation , which means , uh , rather than vowels .
Grad F: Yeah .
PhD D: Points of articulation ? What do you mean ?
Postdoc B: So , is it , uh , bilabial or dental or is it , you know , palatal .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: Which {disfmarker} which are all like where {disfmarker} where your tongue comes to rest .
Professor C: Place , place .
PhD D: Place of ar place of articulation .
Grad F: Uvular .
PhD A: Place .
Postdoc B: Place . Thank you , what {disfmarker} whatev whatever I s said , that 's {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: OK .
Postdoc B: I really meant place .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: OK , I see .
Professor C: Yeah . OK we got our jargon then , OK .
Postdoc B: Yeah .
Professor C: Uh .
PhD G: Well it 's also , there 's , really a difference between , the pronunciation models in the dictionary , and , the pronunciations that people produce . And , so , You get , some of that information from Steve 's work on the {disfmarker} on the labeling
Professor C: Right .
Grad F: Right .
PhD G: and it really , I actually think that data should be used more . That maybe , although I think the meeting context is great , that he has transcriptions that give you the actual phone sequence . And you can go from {disfmarker} not from that to the articulatory features , but that would be a better starting point for marking , the gestural features , then , data where you don't have that , because , we {disfmarker} you wanna know , both about the way that they 're producing a certain sound , and what kinds of , you know what kinds of , phonemic , differences you get between these , transcribed , sequences and the dictionary ones .
Professor C: Well you might be right that mi might be the way at getting at , what I was talking about , but the particular reason why I was interested in doing that was because I remember , when that happened , and , John Ohala was over here and he was looking at the spectrograms of the more difficult ones . Uh , he didn't know what to say , about , what is the sequence of phones there . They came up with some compromise . Because that really wasn't what it look like . It didn't look like a sequence of phones
Grad F: Right .
PhD G: Right .
Professor C: it look like this blending thing happening here and here and here .
Grad F: Yeah , so you have this feature here , and , overlap , yeah .
PhD G: Right .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: There was no name for that .
PhD G: But {disfmarker} Right .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: But it still is {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} there are two steps . One {disfmarker} you know , one is going from a dictionary pronunciation of something , like , " gonna see you tomorrow " ,
Grad F: And {disfmarker} Or " gonta " .
Professor C: Right . Yeah .
PhD G: it could be " going to " or " gonna " or " gonta s " you know .
Professor C: Right .
PhD G: And , yeah . " Gonna see you tomorrow " , uh , " guh see you tomorrow " . And , that it would be nice to have these , intermediate , or these {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} these reduced pronunciations that those transcribers had marked or to have people mark those as well .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD G: Because , it 's not , um , that easy to go from the , dictionary , word pronuncia the dictionary phone pronunciation , to the gestural one without this intermediate or a syllable level kind of , representation .
Grad F: Well I don't think Morgan 's suggesting that we do that , though .
Professor C: Do you mean ,
PhD A: Yeah .
Professor C: Yeah , I mean , I I I 'm jus at the moment of course we 're just talking about what , to provide as a tool for people to do research who have different ideas about how to do it . So for instance , you might have someone who just has a wor has words with states , and has uh {disfmarker} uh , comes from articulatory gestures to that . And someone else , might actually want some phonetic uh intermediate thing . So I think it would be {disfmarker} be best to have all of it if we could . But {pause} um ,
Grad F: But {disfmarker} What I 'm imagining is a score - like notation , where each line is a particular feature .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: Right ,
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: so you would say , you know , it 's voiced through here , and so you have label here , and you have nas nasal here , and , they {disfmarker} they could be overlapping in all sorts of bizarre ways that don't correspond to the timing on phones .
Professor C: I mean this is the kind of reason why {disfmarker} I remember when at one of the Switchboard , workshops , that uh when we talked about doing the transcription project , Dave Talkin said , " can't be done " .
Grad F: Right .
Professor C: He was {disfmarker} he was , what {disfmarker} what he meant was that this isn't , you know , a sequence of phones , and when you actually look at Switchboard that 's , not what you see , and , you know . And . It ,
Grad F: And in {disfmarker} in fact the inter - annotator agreement was not that good , right ? On the harder ones ?
Professor C: yeah I mean it was
PhD G: It depends how you look at it , and I {disfmarker} I understand what you 're saying about this , kind of transcription exactly ,
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: because I 've seen {disfmarker} you know , where does the voicing bar start and so forth .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: All I 'm saying is that , it is useful to have that {disfmarker} the transcription of what was really said , and which syllables were reduced . Uh , if you 're gonna add the features it 's also useful to have some level of representation which is , is a reduced {disfmarker} it 's a pronunciation variant , that currently the dictionaries don't give you
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD G: because if you add them to the dictionary and you run recognition , you , you add confusion .
Professor C: Right . Right .
PhD G: So people purposely don't add them . So it 's useful to know which variant was {disfmarker} was produced , at least at the phone level .
PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} it would be great if we had , either these kind of , labelings on , the same portion of Switchboard that Steve marked , or , Steve 's type markings on this data , with these .
PhD G: Right . That 's all , I mean . Exactly .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: Exactly .
Professor C: Yeah , no I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that .
PhD G: And Steve 's type is fairly {disfmarker} it 's not that slow , uh , uh , I dunno exactly what the , timing was , but .
Professor C: Yeah u I don't disagree with it the on the only thing is that , What you actually will end {disfmarker} en end up with is something , i it 's all compromised , right , so , the string that you end up with isn't , actually , what happened . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's the best compromise that a group of people scratching their heads could come up with to describe what happened .
PhD D: And it 's more accurate than , phone labels .
PhD G: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: But . And it 's more accurate than the {disfmarker} than the dictionary or , if you 've got a pronunciation uh lexicon that has three or four ,
Grad F: The word .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor C: this might be have been the fifth one that you tr that you pruned or whatever ,
PhD D: So it 's like a continuum .
PhD G: Right .
Professor C: so sure .
PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} you 're going all the way down ,
PhD G: Right . Right .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD D: yeah .
PhD G: That 's what I meant is {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: an and in some places it would fill in , So {disfmarker} the kinds of gestural features are not everywhere .
Grad F: Well {disfmarker}
PhD D: Right .
PhD G: So there are some things that you don't have access to either from your ear or the spectrogram ,
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
PhD G: but you know what phone it was and that 's about all you can {disfmarker} all you can say .
PhD D: Right .
PhD G: And then there are other cases where , nasality , voicing {disfmarker}
PhD D: It 's basically just having , multiple levels of {disfmarker} of , information and marking , on the signal .
PhD G: Right . Right .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: Well the other difference is that the {disfmarker} the features , are not synchronous ,
PhD G: Right .
Grad F: right . They overlap each other in weird ways .
PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm .
Grad F: So it 's not a strictly one - dimensional signal .
Professor C: Right .
Grad F: So I think that 's sorta qualitatively different .
PhD G: Right . You can add the features in , uh , but it 'll be underspecified .
Postdoc B: Hmm .
PhD G: Th - there 'll be no way for you to actually mark what was said completely by features .
Grad F: Well not with our current system but you could imagine designing a system , that the states were features , rather than phones .
PhD G: And i if you 're {disfmarker} Well , we {disfmarker} we 've probably have a {vocalsound} separate , um , discussion of , uh {disfmarker} of whether you can do that .
Postdoc B: That 's {disfmarker} Well , {pause} isn't that {disfmarker} I thought that was , well but that {disfmarker} wasn't that kinda the direction ?
Grad F: Yeah .
Postdoc B: I thought
Professor C: Yeah , so I mean , what , what {disfmarker} where this is , I mean , I I want would like to have something that 's useful to people other than those who are doing the specific kind of research I have in mind , so it should be something broader . But , The {disfmarker} but uh where I 'm coming from is , uh , we 're coming off of stuff that Larry Saul did with {disfmarker} with , um , uh , John Dalan and Muzim Rahim in which , uh , they , uh , have , um , a m a multi - band system that is , uh , trained through a combination of gradient learning an and EM , to {pause} um , estimate , uh , {vocalsound} the , uh , value for m for {disfmarker} for a particular feature . OK . And this is part of a larger , image that John Dalan has about how the human brain does it in which he 's sort of imagining that , individual frequency channels are coming up with their own estimate , of {disfmarker} of these , these kinds of {disfmarker} something like this . Might not be , you know , exact features that , Jakobson thought of or something . But I mean you know some , something like that . Some kind of low - level features , which are not , fully , you know , phone classification . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th this particular image , of how thi how it 's done , is that , then given all of these estimates at that level , there 's a level above it , then which is {disfmarker} is making , some kind of sound unit classification such as , you know , phone and {disfmarker} and , you know . You could argue what , what a sound unit should be , and {disfmarker} and so forth . But that {disfmarker} that 's sort of what I was imagining doing , um , and {disfmarker} but it 's still open within that whether you would have an intermediate level in which it was actually phones , or not . You wouldn't necessarily have to . Um , but , Again , I wouldn't wanna , wouldn't want what we {disfmarker} we produced to be so , know , local in perspective that it {disfmarker} it was matched , what we were thinking of doing one week , And {disfmarker} and , and , you know , what you 're saying is absolutely right . That , that if we , can we should put in , uh , another level of , of description there if we 're gonna get into some of this low - level stuff .
PhD D: Well , you know , um {disfmarker} I mean if we 're talking about , having the , annotators annotate these kinds of features , it seems like , You know , you {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the question is , do they do that on , meeting data ? Or do they do that on , Switchboard ?
Grad F: That 's what I was saying ,
Postdoc B: W Well it seems like you could do both .
Grad F: maybe meeting data isn't the right corpus .
Postdoc B: I mean , I was thinking that it would be interesting , to do it with respect to , parts of Switchboard anyway , in terms of ,
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} partly to see , if you could , generate first guesses at what the articulatory feature would be , based on the phone representation at that lower level .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: It might be a time gain . But also in terms of comparability of , um ,
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Well cuz the yeah , and then also , if you did it on Switchboard , you would have , the full continuum of transcriptions .
Postdoc B: what you gain Yep .
PhD D: You 'd have it , from the lowest level , the ac acoustic features , then you 'd have the , you know , the phonetic level that Steve did ,
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm .
PhD G: Yeah that {disfmarker} that 's all I was thinking about .
Postdoc B: And you could tell that {disfmarker}
PhD D: and , yeah .
PhD G: it is telephone band , so , the bandwidth might be {disfmarker}
PhD D: It 'd be a complete , set then .
Postdoc B: And you get the relative gain up ahead .
Professor C: It 's so it 's a little different . So I mean i we 'll see wha how much we can , uh , get the people to do , and how much money we 'll have and all this sort of thing ,
PhD G: Yeah .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm .
PhD D: But it {disfmarker} it might be good to do what Jane was saying uh , you know , seed it , with , guesses about what we think the features are , based on , you know , the phone or Steve 's transcriptions or something . to make it quicker .
Professor C: but , Might be do both .
Grad F: Alright , so based on the phone transcripts they would all be synchronous , but then you could imagine , nudging them here and there .
PhD D: Adjusting ? Yeah , exactly .
Postdoc B: Yeah .
PhD D: Scoot the voicing over a little , because {disfmarker}
Grad F: Right .
Professor C: Well I think what {disfmarker} I mean I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm a l little behind in what they 're doing , now , and , uh , the stuff they 're doing on Switchboard now . But I think that , Steve and the gang are doing , something with an automatic system first and then doing some adjustment . As I re as I recall . So I mean that 's probably the right way to go anyway , is to {disfmarker} is to start off with an automatic system with a pretty rich pronunciation dictionary that , that , um , you know , tries , to label it all . And then , people go through and fix it .
Postdoc B: So in {disfmarker} in our case you 'd think about us s starting with maybe the regular dictionary entry , and then ? Or {pause} would we {disfmarker}
Professor C: Well , regular dictionary , I mean , this is a pretty rich dictionary . It 's got , got a fair number of pronunciations in it
Postdoc B: But {disfmarker}
PhD D: Or you could start from the {disfmarker} if we were gonna , do the same set , of sentences that Steve had , done , we could start with those transcriptions .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . So I was thinking {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: That 's actually what I was thinking , is tha {disfmarker}
PhD D: Yeah .
Grad F: Right .
PhD G: the problem is when you run , uh , if you run a regular dictionary , um , even if you have variants , in there , which most people don't , you don't always get , out , the actual pronunciations ,
PhD D: Yeah .
PhD G: so that 's why the human transcriber 's giving you the {disfmarker} that pronunciation ,
Postdoc B: Yeah . Oh .
Professor C: Actually maybe they 're using phone recognizers .
PhD G: and so y they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} I thought that they were {disfmarker}
Professor C: Is that what they 're doing ?
Grad F: They are .
Professor C: Oh , OK .
PhD G: we should catch up on what Steve is ,
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: uh {disfmarker} I think that would be a good i good idea .
Professor C: Yeah , so I think that i i we also don't have , I mean , we 've got a good start on it , but we don't have a really good , meeting , recorder or recognizer or transcriber or anything yet , so . So , I mean another way to look at this is to , is to , uh , do some stuff on Switchboard which has all this other , stuff to it .
PhD G: Yeah .
Professor C: And then , um , As we get , further down the road and we can do more things ahead of time , we can , do some of the same things to the meeting data .
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: OK .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And I 'm {disfmarker} and these people might {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they are , s most of them are trained with IPA .
Professor C: Yeah
Postdoc B: They 'd be able to do phonetic - level coding , or articulatory .
PhD D: Are they busy for the next couple years , or {disfmarker} ?
Postdoc B: Well , you know , I mean they , they {disfmarker} they 're interested in continuing working with us , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I , and this would be up their alley , so , we could {disfmarker} when the {disfmarker} when you d meet with , with John Ohala and find , you know what taxonomy you want to apply , then , they 'd be , good to train onto it .
Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Anyway , this is , not an urgent thing at all ,
Postdoc B: Yeah .
Professor C: just it came up .
PhD D: It 'd be very interesting though , to have {pause} that data .
Postdoc B: I think so , too .
Grad F: I wonder , how would you do a forced alignment ?
PhD G: Yeah . Might {disfmarker}
Postdoc B: Interesting idea .
Grad F: To {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I mean , you 'd wanna iterate , somehow . Yeah . It 's interesting thing to think about .
PhD D: Hmm .
PhD G: It might be {disfmarker}
Grad F: I mean you 'd {disfmarker} you 'd want models for spreading .
PhD G: I was thinking it might be n
PhD D: Of the f acoustic features ?
Grad F: Yeah .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: Well it might be neat to do some , phonetic , features on these , nonword words . Are {disfmarker} are these kinds of words that people never {disfmarker} the " huh "s and the " hmm "s and the " huh " {vocalsound} and the uh {disfmarker} These k No , I 'm serious . There are all these kinds of {pause} functional , uh , elements . I don't know what you call {pause} them . But not just fill pauses but all kinds of ways of {pause} interrupting {comment} and so forth .
Grad F: Uh - huh .
PhD G: And some of them are , {vocalsound} yeah , " uh - huh "s , and " hmm "s , and , " hmm ! " " hmm " {comment} " OK " , " uh " {comment} Grunts , uh , that might be interesting .
Postdoc B: He 's got lip {disfmarker} {pause} lipsmacks .
PhD G: In the meetings .
Professor C: We should move on .
Postdoc B: Yeah .
Professor C: Uh , new version of , uh , presegmentation ?
PhD A: Uh , oh yeah , um , {vocalsound} I worked a little bit on the {disfmarker} on the presegmentation to {disfmarker} to get another version which does channel - specific , uh , speech - nonspeech detection . And , what I did is I used some normalized features which , uh , look in into the {disfmarker} which is normalized energy , uh , energy normalized by the mean over the channels and by the , minimum over the , other . within each channel . And to {disfmarker} to , mm , to , yeah , to normalize also loudness and {disfmarker} and modified loudness and things and that those special features actually are in my feature vector .
Grad F: Oh .
PhD A: And , and , therefore to be able to , uh , somewhat distinguish between foreground and background speech in {disfmarker} in the different {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} each channel . And , eh , I tested it on {disfmarker} on three or four meetings and it seems to work , well yeah , fairly well , I {disfmarker} I would say . There are some problems with the lapel mike .
Grad F: Of course .
PhD A: Yeah . Uh , yeah .
Grad F: Wow that 's great .
PhD A: And .
Grad F: So I {disfmarker} I understand that 's what you were saying about your problem with , minimum .
PhD A: Yeah . And . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I had {disfmarker} I had , uh , specific problems with .
Grad F: I get it . So new use ninetieth quartile , rather than , minimum .
PhD A: Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc B: Wow .
PhD A: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah , then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that ,
Postdoc B: Interesting .
PhD A: as there {disfmarker} there are some {disfmarker} some problems in , when , in the channel , there {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the the speaker doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't talk much or doesn't talk at all . Then , the , yeah , there are {disfmarker} there are some problems with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with n with normalization , and , then , uh , there the system doesn't work at all . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm glad that there is the {disfmarker} the digit part , where everybody is forced to say something ,
Professor C: Right .
PhD A: so , that 's {disfmarker} that 's great for {disfmarker} for my purpose . And , the thing is I {disfmarker} I , then the evaluation of {disfmarker} of the system is a little bit hard , as I don't have any references .
Grad F: Well we did the hand {disfmarker} the one by hand .
PhD A: Yeah , that 's the one {disfmarker} one wh where I do the training on so I can't do the evaluation on So the thing is , can the transcribers perhaps do some , some {disfmarker} some meetings in {disfmarker} in terms of speech - nonspeech in {disfmarker} in the specific channels ?
Grad F: Uh .
Postdoc B: Well , I have {disfmarker}
PhD D: Well won't you have that from their transcriptions ?
Postdoc B: Well , OK , so , now we need {disfmarker}
Grad F: No , cuz we need is really tight .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: so , um , I think I might have done what you 're requesting , though I did it in the service of a different thing .
PhD A: Oh , great .
Postdoc B: I have thirty minutes that I 've more tightly transcribed with reference to individual channels .
PhD A: OK . OK , that 's great . That 's great for me . Yeah , so .
Postdoc B: And I could {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker}
Grad F: Hopefully that 's not the same meeting that we did .
Postdoc B: No , actually it 's a different meeting .
Grad F: Good .
PhD A: OK .
Postdoc B: So , um , e so the , you know , we have the , th they transcribe as if it 's one channel with these {disfmarker} with the slashes to separate the overlapping parts .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And then we run it through {disfmarker} then it {disfmarker} then I 'm gonna edit it and I 'm gonna run it through channelize which takes it into Dave Gelbart 's form format .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And then you have , all these things split across according to channel , and then that means that , if a person contributed more than once in a given , overlap during that time bend that {disfmarker} that two parts of the utterance end up together , it 's the same channel ,
PhD A: OK .
Postdoc B: and then I took his tool , and last night for the first thirty minutes of one of these transcripts , I , tightened up the , um , boundaries on individual speakers ' channels ,
PhD A: OK . Yeah .
Postdoc B: cuz his {disfmarker} his interface allows me to have total flexibility in the time tags across the channels .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And {pause} um , so .
PhD A: so , yeah {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's great , but what would be nice to have some more meetings , not just one meeting to {disfmarker} to be sure that {disfmarker} that , there is a system ,
PhD D: So , current {disfmarker} This week .
Postdoc B: Yes . Might not be what you need .
Grad F: Yeah , so if we could get a couple meetings done with that level of precision I think that would be a good idea .
PhD A: OK . Yeah .
Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Uh , how {disfmarker} how m much time {disfmarker} so the meetings vary in length , what are we talking about in terms of the number of minutes you 'd like to have as your {disfmarker} as your training set ?
PhD A: It seems to me that it would be good to have , a few minutes from {disfmarker} from different meetings , so . But I 'm not sure about how much .
Postdoc B: OK , now you 're saying different meetings because of different speakers or because of different audio quality or both or {disfmarker} ?
PhD A: Both {disfmarker} both . Different {disfmarker} different number of speakers , different speakers , different {pause} conditions .
Postdoc B: OK .
Professor C: Yeah , we don't have that much variety in meetings yet , uh , I mean we have this meeting and the feature meeting and we have a couple others that we have uh , couple examples of . But {disfmarker} but , uh ,
PhD A: Yeah , m Yeah .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm .
Grad E: Even probably with the gains {pause} differently will affect it , you mean {disfmarker}
PhD A: Uh , not really as {disfmarker}
Professor C: Poten - potentially .
PhD A: uh , because of the normalization , yeah .
Grad E: Oh , cuz you use the normalization ? OK .
PhD A: Yeah .
Professor C: Oh , OK .
PhD G: We can try running {disfmarker} we haven't done this yet because , um , uh , Andreas an is {disfmarker} is gonna move over the SRI recognizer . i basically I ran out of machines at SRI ,
PhD A: OK .
PhD G: cuz we 're running the evals and I just don't have machine time there . But , once that 's moved over , uh , hopefully in a {disfmarker} a couple days , then , we can take , um , what Jane just told us about as , the presegmented , {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the segmentations that you did , at level eight or som {comment} at some , threshold that Jane , tha {pause} right , and try doing , forced alignment . um , on the word strings .
Grad F: Oh , shoot !
PhD A: Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc B: The pre presegment
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: yeah .
PhD A: With the recognizer ? Yeah .
PhD G: And if it 's good , then that will {disfmarker} that may give you a good boundary . Of course if it 's good , we don't {disfmarker} then we 're {disfmarker} we 're fine ,
PhD A: Yeah . M
PhD G: but , I don't know yet whether these , segments that contain a lot of pauses around the words , will work or not .
PhD A: I {disfmarker} I would quite like to have some manually transcribed references for {disfmarker} for the system , as I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if it 's really good to compare with {disfmarker} with some other automatic , found boundaries .
PhD G: Yeah . Right .
Postdoc B: Well , no , if we were to start with this and then tweak it h manually , would that {disfmarker} that would be OK ?
PhD A: Yeah .
PhD G: Right .
PhD A: Yeah {pause} sure .
PhD G: They might be OK .
Postdoc B: OK .
PhD G: It {disfmarker} you know it really depends on a lot of things ,
PhD A: Yeah .
PhD G: but , I would have maybe a transciber , uh , look at the result of a forced alignment and then adjust those .
PhD A: Yeah . To a adjust them , or , yeah . Yeah , yeah .
PhD G: That might save some time .
PhD A: Yeah , great .
PhD G: If they 're horrible it won't help at all , but they might not be horrible .
PhD A: Yeah .
PhD G: So {disfmarker} but I 'll let you know when we , uh , have that .
PhD A: OK , great .
Postdoc B: How many minutes would you want from {disfmarker} I mean , we could {pause} easily , get a section , you know , like say a minute or so , from every meeting that we have so f from the newer ones that we 're working on , everyone that we have . And then , should provide this .
PhD A: If it 's not the first minute of {disfmarker} of the meeting , that {disfmarker} that 's OK with me , but , in {disfmarker} in the first minute , uh , Often there are some {disfmarker} some strange things going on which {disfmarker} which aren't really , well , for , which {disfmarker} which aren't re re really good . So . What {disfmarker} what I 'd quite like , perhaps , is , to have , some five minutes of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of different meetings , so .
Postdoc B: Somewhere not in the very beginning , five minutes , OK .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And , then I wanted to ask you just for my inter information , then , would you , be trai cuz I don't quite unders so , would you be training then , um , the segmenter so that , it could , on the basis of that , segment the rest of the meeting ? So , if I give you like {pause} five minutes is the idea that this would then be applied to , uh , to , providing tighter time {pause} bands ?
PhD A: I {disfmarker} I could do a {disfmarker} a retraining with that , yeah .
Postdoc B: Wow , interesting .
PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I hope that I {disfmarker} I don't need to do it .
Postdoc B: OK .
PhD A: So , uh it c can be do in an unsupervised way .
Postdoc B: Uh - huh .
PhD A: So .
Postdoc B: Excellent . Excellent , OK .
PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , but , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for those three meetings whi which I {disfmarker} which I did , it seems to be , quite well , but , there are some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} as I said some problems with the lapel mike , but , perhaps we can do something with {disfmarker} with cross - correlations to , to get rid of the {disfmarker} of those . And . Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I {disfmarker} that 's my {pause} future work . Well {disfmarker} well what I want to do is to {disfmarker} to look into cross - correlations for {disfmarker} for removing those , false overlaps .
Postdoc B: Wonderful .
PhD G: Are the , um , wireless , different than the wired , mikes , at all ? I mean , have you noticed any difference ?
PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , um , if {disfmarker} if there are any wired mikes in those meetings , or , uh , I have {disfmarker} have to loo have a look at them but , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I think there 's no difference between ,
PhD G: So it 's just the lapel versus everything else ?
PhD A: Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc B: OK , so then , if that 's five minutes per meeting we 've got like twelve minutes , twelve meetings , roughly , that I 'm {disfmarker} that I 've been working with , then {disfmarker}
Professor C: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the meetings that you 're working with , how many of them are different , tha
PhD A: No .
Professor C: are there any of them that are different than , these two meetings ?
Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} oh wa in terms of the speakers or the conditions or the ?
Professor C: Yeah , speakers . Sorry .
PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker}
Postdoc B: Um , we have different combinations of speakers .
Professor C: So .
Postdoc B: I mean , just from what I 've seen , uh , there are some where , um , you 're present or not present , and , then {disfmarker} then you have the difference between the networks group and this group
PhD A: Yeah , I know , some of the NSA meetings , yeah .
Professor C: Yeah . So I didn't know in the group you had if you had {disfmarker}
PhD A: Yeah .
Professor C: so you have the networks meeting ?
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: Yep , we do .
Professor C: Do you have any of Jerry 's meetings in your , pack , er ,
Postdoc B: Um , no .
Professor C: No ?
Postdoc B: We could , I mean you {disfmarker} you recorded one last week or so . I could get that new one in this week {disfmarker} I get that new one in .
Grad F: Yep . u
PhD G: We 're gonna be recording them every {pause} Monday ,
Professor C: Yeah . Cuz I think he really needs variety ,
PhD G: so {disfmarker}
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: Great .
Professor C: and {disfmarker} and having as much variety for speaker certainly would be a big part of that I think .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: OK , so if I , OK , included {disfmarker} include , OK , then , uh , if I were to include all together samples from twelve meetings that would only take an hour and I could get the transcribers to do that right {disfmarker} I mean , what I mean is , that would be an hour sampled , and then they 'd transcribe those {disfmarker} that hour , right ? That 's what I should do ?
Professor C: Yeah . And .
PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's .
Postdoc B: I don't mean transcribe
Professor C: Right . Ye - But you 're {disfmarker} y
Postdoc B: I mean {disfmarker} I mean adjust . So they get it into the multi - channel format and then adjust the timebands so it 's precise .
Professor C: So that should be faster than the ten times kind of thing ,
Postdoc B: Absolutely . I did {disfmarker} I did , um , uh , so , last night I did , uh ,
Professor C: yeah .
Postdoc B: Oh gosh , well , last night , I did about half an hour in , three hours , which is not , terrific ,
Professor C: Yeah .
Postdoc B: but , um , anyway , it 's an hour and a half per {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah . Well , that 's probably .
PhD A: So .
Postdoc B: Well , I can't calculate on my , {vocalsound} on my feet .
PhD A: Do the transcribers actually start wi with , uh , transcribing new meetings , or {pause} are they ?
Postdoc B: Well , um they 're still working {disfmarker} they still have enough to finish that I haven't assigned a new meeting ,
PhD A: OK .
Postdoc B: but the next , m m I was about to need to assign a new meeting and I was going to take it from one of the new ones ,
PhD A: OK .
Postdoc B: and I could easily give them Jerry Feldman 's meeting , no problem . And , then {disfmarker}
PhD A: OK .
PhD G: So they 're really running out of , data , prett I mean that 's good .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Uh , that first set .
PhD G: Um , OK .
Professor C: They 're running out of data unless we s make the decision that we should go over and start , uh , transcribing the other set .
PhD G: So {disfmarker}
Professor C: There {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} the first half .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: And so I was in the process of like editing them but this is wonderful news .
PhD A: OK .
Professor C: Alright .
Postdoc B: We funded the experiment with , uh {disfmarker} also we were thinking maybe applying that that to getting the , Yeah , that 'll be , very useful to getting the overlaps to be more precise all the way through .
Professor C: So this , blends nicely into the update on transcripts .
Postdoc B: Yes , it does . So , um , {comment} um , Liz , and {disfmarker} and Don , and I met this morning , in the BARCO room , with the lecture hall ,
Professor C: OK .
PhD G: Yeah , please . Go ahead . And this afternoon .
Postdoc B: and this afternoon , it drifted into the afternoon , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , concerning this issue of , um , the , well there 's basically the issue of the interplay between the transcript format and the processing that , they need to do for , the SRI recognizer . And , um , well , so , I mentioned the process that I 'm going through with the data , so , you know , I get the data back from the transcri Well , s uh , metaphorically , get the data back from the transcriber , and then I , check for simple things like spelling errors and things like that . And , um , I 'm going to be doing a more thorough editing , with respect to consistency of the conventions . But they 're {disfmarker} they 're generally very good . And , then , I run it through , uh , the channelize program to get it into the multi - channel format , OK . And {pause} the , what we discussed this morning , I would summarize as saying that , um , these units that result , in a {disfmarker} a particular channel and a particular timeband , at {disfmarker} at that level , um , vary in length . And , um , {nonvocalsound} their recognizer would prefer that the units not be overly long . But it 's really an empirical question , whether the units we get at this point through , just that process I described might be sufficient for them . So , as a first pass through , a first chance without having to do a lot of hand - editing , what we 're gonna do , is , I 'll run it through channelize , give them those data after I 've done the editing process and be sure it 's clean . And I can do that , pretty quickly , with just , that minimal editing , without having to hand - break things .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: And then we 'll see if the units that we 're getting , uh , with the {disfmarker} at that level , are sufficient . And maybe they don't need to be further broken down . And if they do need to be further broken down then maybe it just be piece - wise , maybe it won't be the whole thing . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we were discussing , this morning as far as I {disfmarker} Among {disfmarker}
PhD G: Right .
Postdoc B: also we discussed some adaptational things ,
PhD G: Then lots of {disfmarker}
Postdoc B: so it 's like ,
PhD G: Right .
Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} You know I hadn't , uh , incorporated , a convention explicitly to handle acronyms , for example , but if someone says , PZM it would be nice to have that be directly interpretable from , the transcript what they said ,
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc B: or Pi - uh Tcl {disfmarker} TCL I mean . It 's like y it 's {disfmarker} and so , um , I 've {disfmarker} I 've incorporated also convention , with that but that 's easy to handle at the post editing phase , and I 'll mention it to , transcribers for the next phase but that 's OK . And then , a similar conv uh , convention for numbers . So if they say one - eighty - three versus one eight three . Um , and also I 'll be , um , encoding , as I do my post - editing , the , things that are in curly brackets , which are clarificational material . And eh to incorporate , uh , keyword , at the beginning . So , it 's gonna be either a gloss or it 's gonna be a vocal sound like a , laugh or a cough , or , so forth . Or a non - vocal sound like a doors door - slam , and that can be easily done with a , you know , just a {disfmarker} one little additional thing in the , in the general format .
PhD G: Yeah we j we just needed a way to , strip , you know , all the comments , all the things th the {disfmarker} that linguist wants but the recognizer can't do anything with . Um , but to keep things that we mapped to like reject models , or , you know , uh , mouth noise , or , cough . And then there 's this interesting issue Jane brought up which I hadn't thought about before but I was , realizing as I went through the transcripts , that there are some noises like , um , well the {disfmarker} good example was an inbreath , where a transcriber working from , the mixed , signal , doesn't know whose breath it is ,
Grad F: Right .
PhD G: and they 've been assigning it to someone that may or may not be correct . And what we do is , if it 's a breath sound , you know , a sound from the speaker , we map it , to , a noise model , like a mouth - noise model in the recognizer , and , yeah , it probably doesn't hurt that much once in a while to have these , but , if they 're in the wrong channel , that 's , not a good idea . And then there 's also , things like door - slams that 's really in no one 's channel , they 're like {disfmarker} it 's in the room .
PhD A: Yeah .
Grad F: Right .
PhD G: And {pause} uh , Jane had this nice , uh , idea of having , like an extra , uh couple tiers ,
Grad F: An extra channel .
Postdoc B: Yeah . I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been adding that to the ones I 've been editing .
PhD G: yeah . And we were thinking , that is useful also when there 's uncertainties . So if they hear a breath and they don't know who breath it is it 's better to put it in that channel than to put it in the speaker 's channel because maybe it was someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} Uh , so I think that 's a good {disfmarker} you can always clean that up , post - processing .
Postdoc B: Yeah .
PhD G: So a lot of little details , but I think we 're , coming to some kinda closure , on that . So the idea is then , uh , Don can take , uh , Jane 's post - processed channelized version , and , with some scripts , you know , convert that to {disfmarker} to a reference for the recognizer and we can , can run these . So {pause} when that 's , ready {disfmarker} you know , as soon as that 's ready , and as soon as the recognizer is here we can get , twelve hours of force - aligned and recognized data . And , you know , start , working on it ,
Postdoc B: And {disfmarker}
PhD G: so we 're , I dunno a coup a week or two away I would say from , uh , if {disfmarker} if that process is automatic once we get your post - process , transcript .
Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . And that doesn't {disfmarker} the amount of editing that it would require is not very much either . I 'm just hoping that the units that are provided in that way , {nonvocalsound} will be sufficient cuz I would save a lot of , uh , time , dividing things .
PhD G: Yeah , some of them are quite long . Just from {disfmarker} I dunno how long were {disfmarker} you did one ?
Grad E: I saw a couple , {vocalsound} around twenty seconds , and that was just without looking too hard for it , so , I would imagine that there might be some that are longer .
PhD G: Right .
Postdoc B: Well n One question , e w would that be a single speaker or is that multiple speakers overlapping ?
Grad E: No . No , but if we 're gonna segment it , like if there 's one speaker in there , that says " OK " or something , right in the middle , it 's gonna have a lot of dead time around it ,
PhD G: Right . It 's not the {disfmarker} it 's not the fact that we can't process a twenty second segment , it 's the fact that , there 's twenty seconds in which to place one word in the wrong place
Grad E: so it 's not {disfmarker}
Postdoc B: Yeah .
Grad E: Yeah .
PhD G: You know , if {disfmarker} if someone has a very short utterance there , and that 's where , we , might wanna have this individual , you know , ha have your pre pre - process input .
PhD A: Yep . Yeah . Sure .
Postdoc B: That 's very important .
PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought that perhaps the transcribers could start then from the {disfmarker} those mult multi - channel , uh , speech - nonspeech detections , if they would like to .
PhD G: And I just don't know , I have to run it .
Postdoc B: In {disfmarker} in doing the hand - marking ?
PhD G: Right .
PhD A: Yeah .
Postdoc B: Yeah that 's what I was thinking , too .
PhD G: Right .
Postdoc B: Yeah .
PhD G: So that 's probably what will happen , but we 'll try it this way and see .
PhD A: Yeah .
PhD G: I mean it 's probably good enough for force - alignment . If it 's not then we 're really {disfmarker} then we def definitely
PhD A: Yeah .
PhD G: uh , but for free recognition I 'm {disfmarker} it 'll probably not be good enough . We 'll probably get lots of errors because of the cross - talk , and , noises and things .
PhD A: Yep .
Professor C: Good s I think that 's probably our agenda , or starting up there .
Postdoc B: Oh I wanted to ask one thing , the microphones {disfmarker} the new microphones ,
Professor C: Yeah ? K .
Postdoc B: when do we get , uh ?
Grad F: Uh , they said it would take about a week .
Postdoc B: Oh , exciting . K . K .
Professor C: K .
PhD D: You ordered them already ?
Grad F: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Great .
PhD G: So what happens to our old microphones ?
Professor C: They go where old microphones go .
Grad F: Um {disfmarker}
PhD G: Do we give them to someone , or {disfmarker} ?
Grad F: Well the only thing we 're gonna have extra , for now ,
PhD G: We don't have more receivers , we just have {disfmarker}
Grad F: Right , we don so the only thing we 'll have extra now is just the lapel .
PhD G: Right .
Grad F: Not {disfmarker} not the , bodypack , just the lapel .
PhD G: Just the lapel itself .
Grad F: Um , and then one of the {disfmarker} one of those . Since , what I decided to do , on Morgan 's suggestion , was just get two , new microphones , um , and try them out . And then , if we like them we 'll get more .
PhD G: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: OK .
Grad F: Since they 're {disfmarker} they 're like two hundred bucks a piece , we won't , uh , at least try them out .
PhD D: So it 's a replacement for this headset mike ?
Grad F: Yep . Yep .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: And they 're gonna do the wiring for us .
PhD D: What 's the , um , style of the headset ?
Grad F: It 's , um , it 's by Crown , and it 's one of these sort of mount around the ear thingies , and , uh , when I s when I mentioned that we thought it was uncomfortable he said it was a common problem with the Sony . And this is how apparently a lot of people are getting around it .
PhD D: Hmm .
Grad F: And I checked on the web , and every site I went to , raved about this particular mike . It 's apparently comfortable and stays on the head well , so we 'll see if it 's any good . But , uh , I think it 's promising .
Postdoc B: You said it was used by aerobics instructors ?
Grad F:  Yep . Yep , so it was {disfmarker} it was advertised for performers
Postdoc B: That says a lot .
Grad E: Hmm .
Professor C: For the recor for the record Adam is not a paid employee or a consultant of Crown .
Grad F: and {disfmarker} Excuse me ?
Postdoc B: Oh .
Professor C: I said " For the record Adam is {disfmarker} is not a paid consultant or employee of Crown " .
Grad F: Excuse me ?
PhD G: Right .
Grad F: That 's right .
PhD G: However , he may be solicited after these meetings are distributed .
Grad F: Well we 're using the Crown P Z
Professor C: Yeah .
PhD G: Don't worry about finishing your dissertation .
Grad F: These are Crown aren't they ?
Professor C: Right .
Grad F: The P Z Ms are Crown , aren't they ?
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad F: Yeah , I thought they were .
Professor C: You bet . You bet .
Grad F: And they work very well .
PhD G: Yes .
Professor C: So if we go to a workshop about all this {disfmarker} this it 's gonna be a meeting about meetings about meetings . OK . So .
Grad F: And then it {disfmarker} we have to go to the planning session for that workshop .
Professor C: Oh , yeah , what {disfmarker} Which 'll be the meeting about the meeting about the meeting .
PhD D: Oh , god .
Grad F: Cuz then it would be a meeting about the meeting about the meeting about meetings .
Postdoc B:
Professor C: Yeah ? Just start saying " M four " . Yeah , OK .
Grad F: Yeah . M to the fourth .
Professor C: Should we do the digits ?
Grad F: Yep , go for it .
Professor C: OK .
PhD A: S {pause} s
Grad F: Pause between the lines , remember ?
Grad E: Excuse me .
Grad F: OK .
Professor C: OK .
PhD G: Huh .