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OpenAI charges by the minute, so speed up your audio

(george.mand.is)

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w-m ◴[25 Jun 25 15:21 UTC] No.44378345[source]▶

With transcribing a talk by Andrej, you already picked the most challenging case possible, speed-wise. His natural talking speed is already >=1.5x that of a normal human. One of the people you absolutely have to set your YouTube speed back down to 1x when listening to follow what's going on.

In the idea of making more of an OpenAI minute, don't send it any silence.

E.g.

    ffmpeg -i video-audio.m4a \
      -af "silenceremove=start_periods=1:start_duration=0:start_threshold=-50dB:\
                         stop_periods=-1:stop_duration=0.02:stop_threshold=-50dB,\
                         apad=pad_dur=0.02" \
      -c:a aac -b:a 128k output_minpause.m4a -y

will cut the talk down from 39m31s to 31m34s, by replacing any silence (with a -50dB threshold) longer than 20ms by a 20ms pause. And to keep with the spirit of your post, I measured only that the input file got shorter, I didn't look at all at the quality of the transcription by feeding it the shorter version.

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1. nickjj ◴[25 Jun 25 23:48 UTC] No.44382864[source]▶

>>44378345 #

Andrej's talk seemed normal to listen at 2x but I've also listened to everything at 2x for a long time.

Unfortunately a byproduct of listening to everything at 2x is I've had a number of folks say they have to watch my videos at 0.75x but even when I play back my own videos it feels painfully slow unless it's 2x.

For reference I've always found John Carmack's pacing perfect / natural and watchable at 2x too.

A recent video of mine is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL-qft1ykek. It was posted on HN by someone else the other day so I'm not trying to do any self promotion here, it's just an example of a recent video I put up and am generally curious if anyone finds that too fast or it's normal. It's a regular unscripted video where I have a rough idea of what I want to cover and then turn on the mic, start recording and let it pan out organically. If I had to guess I'd say the last ~250-300 videos were recorded this way.

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2. noahjk ◴[26 Jun 25 00:11 UTC] No.44383021[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

To me you talk at what I would consider "1.2x" of podcast speed (which to me is a decent average measure of spoken word speed - I usually do 1.5x on all podcasts). You're definitely still in the normal distribution for tech YouTubers, in my experience - in fact it feels like a lot of tech YouTube talks like they've had a bit too much adderall, but you don't come off that way. Naturally people may choose to slow down tutorials, because the person giving the tutorial can never truly understand what someone learning would or wouldn't understand. So overall I think your speed is totally fine! Also, very timely video, I was interested in the exact topic, so I'm happy I found this.

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3. SavioMak ◴[26 Jun 25 00:42 UTC] No.44383169[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

Yeah, you sound around 1.25-1.5x than the average videos I watch

4. viraptor ◴[26 Jun 25 00:55 UTC] No.44383237[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

> Andrej's talk seemed normal to listen at 2x but I've also listened to everything at 2x for a long time.

We get used to higher speeds when we consume a lot of content that way. Have you heard the systems used by experienced blind people? I cannot even understand the words in them, but months of training would probably fix that.

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5. eru ◴[26 Jun 25 01:16 UTC] No.44383355[source]▶

>>44383021 #

> "[I]n fact it feels like a lot of tech YouTube talks like they've had a bit too much adderall, [...]"

Funnily enough, if you actually have ADHD, then stimulants like adderall or even nicotine, will calm you down.

> Naturally people may choose to slow down tutorials, [...]

For me it also depends on what mood I'm in and whether I'm doing anything else at the same time. If I'm fully concentrating on a video, 2x is often fine. If I'm doing some physical task at the same time, I need it slower than that.

If I'm doing a mental task at the same, I can forget about getting anything out of the video. At least, if the mental task involves any words. So eg I could probably still follow along a technical discussion at roughly 1x speed while playing Tetris, but not while coding.

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6. userbinator ◴[26 Jun 25 01:46 UTC] No.44383507[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

but even when I play back my own videos it feels painfully slow unless it's 2x.

Watching your video at 1x still feels too slow, and it's just right for me at 2x speed (that's approximately how fast I normally talk if others don't tell me to slow down), although my usual YouTube watching speed is closer to 2.5-3x. That is to say, you're still faster than a lot of others.

I think it just takes practice --- I started at around 1.25x for videos, and slowly moved up from there. As you have noticed, once you've consumed enough sped-up content, your own speaking speed will also naturally increase.

7. userbinator ◴[26 Jun 25 01:49 UTC] No.44383518[source]▶

>>44383237 #

You can achieve a similar, less permanent effect by closing your eyes; I often do it when I'm on a call and the person on the other end is extremely difficult to understand.

8. Tyr42 ◴[26 Jun 25 02:15 UTC] No.44383644{3}[source]▶

>>44383355 #

Driving is a hard 1.0 for me. But otherwise 2.0 is good.

9. fuzztester ◴[26 Jun 25 02:34 UTC] No.44383753[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

James Goodnight of SAS Institute:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Goodnight

I have watched one or two videos of his, and he spoke slowly, compared to the average person. I liked that. It sounded good.

10. makeitdouble ◴[26 Jun 25 03:18 UTC] No.44383906[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

Your video sounded a tad fast at 2x and pretty fine at 1.5.

Now I think speed adjustment come less from the natural speaking pace of the person than the subject matter.

I'm thinking of a channel like Accented Cinema (https://youtu.be/hfruMPONaYg), with a slowish talking pace, but as there's all the visual part going on at all times, it actually doesn't feel slow to my ear.

I felt the same for videos explaining concept I have no familiarity with, so I see as how fast the brain can process the info, less than the talking speed per se.

11. retsibsi ◴[26 Jun 25 08:14 UTC] No.44385284[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

Your speaking speed is noticeably faster than usual, but I think it's good for this kind of video. When the content is really dense and every word is chosen for maximum information value, a slower speed would be good, but for relatively natural speech with a normal amount of redundancy I think it's fine to go at this speed.

12. quietbritishjim ◴[26 Jun 25 11:08 UTC] No.44386182[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

Your actual speed of talking sounds a little faster than average but not notably so.

But it feels (very subjectively) faster to me than usual because you don't really seem to take any pauses. It's like the whole video is a single run-on sentence that I keep buffering, but I never get a chance to process it and flush the buffer.

13. fortran77 ◴[26 Jun 25 13:40 UTC] No.44387311[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

I always listen to YouTube and podcasts at 1.5. And when I meet a YouTuber/podcaster IRL, I’m always annoyed at how slow they speak.

14. Der_Einzige ◴[26 Jun 25 15:20 UTC] No.44388274[source]▶

>>44382864 (TP) #

This btw is also why spreading (speed reading) happens in American competitive debate. This gets ridiculed online but it's exactly why it happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_(debate)

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15. hooverd ◴[26 Jun 25 17:41 UTC] No.44389552[source]▶

>>44388274 #

They should put an upper WPM on competitive debate, like F1 does with certain car parts.

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