Need to play audio files with variable backspace.

[farnham]

Newbie needs to play audio files with a variable backspace, i.e. a "dictating machine." I am a professional transcriptionist and this would be useful for my business. Would appreciate any help.

Thanks,

Farnham

[farslayer]

Might help if we knew what variable backspace was... I can find dictation equipment that supports variable backspace but I can't seem to find a definition of what it is..

I'm assuming you do not mean variable playback speed..


Ahh finally found a explaination..

VARIABLE BACKSPACE FUNCTION
The rewind or review button is used when you wish to revise the recorded content; when, at the time of transcribing, you wish to go back to sections you could not discern clearly; or when you want to listen repeatedly to a certain section. In place of having to determine the rewinding distance by pressing the rewind button, the variable backspace function enables a section to be rewound to a present point. This saves the time and effort of having to manually in a hit or miss fashion.

So you want to be able to playback an audio file, and mark sections so you can get back to them easily at a later point in time. like index marks...


Totally not my field, not sure if this app will do what you want, but it does list transcription and transcription audio formats in it's overview..
http://www.speech.kth.se/wavesurfer/

http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/ - lists linux..

http://www.freewisdom.org/projects/earnote/ - basic but supports timecoding and mp3 format..


dunno if any of those will do exactly what you want..

good luck..

[farnham]

Trying this to see if it works. The Reply button wouldn't work.

Farnham

By the way, you're pretty advanced for a Newbie, it seems to me.

[farnham]

Okay, I'm gonna give it one more try before I pass out:

It's a very simple thing I'm looking for. It has nothing to do with "speech recognition" or finding bookmarks. It just means every time you stop the playback it backspaces half a second or a second or a second and a half-- whatever you set it to. Also the keys you use to do that are usually F4, F5, and F6 and they are rigged so they will work in any window.

You need the backspace so that every time you stop the playback you are sure you are not missing anything.

Does that help? I will look at the websites you suggested but I'm not too optimistic because most of the interest today seems to be in speech recognition. Again, many thanks

Farnham

[farnham]

Farslayer,

Haven't heard from you. Did I make it clear how a dictating machine works? If not let me know.

From the first site you suggested I installed WaveSurfer, which seems promising. A simple but modifiable sound player. Is it possible you could look at it and see if it will do what I need? That is, be able to Start/ Backspace-Stop with the F4 key?

Also, this key should persist so you can type in a different window without switching windows to control the sound player. Two other function keys would rewind and fast-forward, say F3 and F5.

In any case, like to hear from you. --------- -----------

Farnham.

[farslayer]

These were my best shot at locating audio players that might be designed to work with transcription. like I said it's not my field of expertise by any means I was just hoping to start you in the right direction.

express scribe states that it allows the use of 'hot keys' and transcription foot pedals.. it must run under wine in linux but they even provide directions for that..

# Supports many professional foot pedals which connect to the game, serial or USB port to control playback. More info...
# Uses system wide 'hot' keys so you can control playback when using other software (eg. Microsoft Word).

[farnham]

Thanks again, Far! Sounds terrific. Assuming that's yr second link, I am going there for a minute before I pass out.

Farnham