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Is there an application for windows which allows you to convert the audio from a playing video into text?

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YouTube has the feature, but it usually ends up just spitting out nonsense for the most part.

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    I agree with @Force Flow; the technology is just not there yet...
    – studiohack
    Nov 27, 2010 at 5:24
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I found a way to do this using the MS word dictate tool (Office 365 online version) the solution is a bit complicated though, so someone might have a better solution.

here is what I do so far:

How to live transcribe the computer sound and microphone on Windows:

Prerequisites:

  • You will need a virtual cable application: VB cable. After installing VB cable you need to restart you computer.
  • You will need a Office 365 subscription which has the dictate function (currently only available in Office online)

Step 1: Transcribe Computer sounds live (e.g. Youtube Videos)

  1. click on the speaker symbol in your task bar
  2. click on 'sounds'sound menu

If you have installed the VB cable You will see the “VB-Audio Virtual cable Input“ as an option in the Playback tab and the “VB cable Output” in the Recording tab. Playback tab Recording tab

Any sound that is send through the VB cable input is redirected back into the VB cable output.

  1. Set the Cable input as you default Playback device by right clicking it and choosing “Set as Default device” Doing so means that any sound gets transfered back into the microphone channel of your computer.(You won't be able to hear the video. We will address this in the next step.)

In Office 365 start the dictate feature (currently only available in the online version I think.) and select the VB cable output as sound source.

If you now start a Youtube video or any other source of speech and start the ‘dictate’ feature it will start transcribing the spoken text.

Step 2: Enable simultanious listening and transcribing At the moment you will not be able to hear the sound yourself because the sound is redirected through the cable.

You need to enable your headphones or speakers to listen in to the sound that is transferred through the cable

  1. Return to the Sound menu
  2. Right click on your headphones/speaker of choice
  3. Go to Properties > Listen
  4. Tick the "Listen to this device" tick box
  5. Select your 'Cable Input' as source Listen settings Now you are able to listen to a video and have it transcribed at the same time.

(optional) Step 3: Enable simultanious listening, speaking and transcribing (If you want to transcribe your own voice at the same time (e.g. for transcribing a meeting)

Set the VB cable to listen to our microphone.

  1. Go back to the sound menu
  2. right click the VB-cable output in the Recording tab.
  3. Go to the Listen tab and set your microphone as the source device for the Listening option.

Now you can join your next meeting and transcribe everything that is being said in Word.

As I said it is a bit of a complicated solution but it works. of course the transcription of the text depends a lot on the language and on the sound quality. It is definitely not perfect but for English it is not bad either.

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