NYT Links Convention Videos, Speech Transcripts

theodp writes "The New York Times is offering a pretty cool new Interactive video and transcript feature. A window running video of speeches from the Democratic and Republican conventions appears next to a scrolling window containing transcripts of the speeches. Click on the paragraph you want, and the video jumps to the beginning of that paragraph. There's also an outline listing major subject areas in the speeches. Click on the section you want, and you'll be taken to that part of the transcript and video. Check it out, Obama and McCain fans!"

Comments

I thought it was a slow news day.... but

[zappepcs]

Hey, that's pretty fscking cool! I would like to see that for C-SPAN. That sort of indexing would take a huge amount of pain out of getting information from C-SPAN and many other video sources. Very cool.

Re:I thought it was a slow news day.... but

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be some kind of open democracy Web site that indexed all C-SPAN video and had searchable transcripts of speeches given by everyone on the House/Senate floor. I think they were being automatically generated (speech to text transliteration, or maybe it was being copied from the closed caption information in the feed).

Am I making this up or do I actually remember this? Does anyone know what it was called?

Re:I thought it was a slow news day.... but

[zappepcs]

I never heard of it before, but then finding it has not been on my todo list for years either.. rather a recent addition. I hope there is something like that.

Re:I thought it was a slow news day.... but

[zappepcs]

Gah, I've been hitting submit too soon tonight... try this http://metavid.ucsc.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page for some government video awesomeness :)

Re:I thought it was a slow news day.... but

[BruceCage]

I just wanted to point out it's been around for a while now, I actually used it to analyze the Republican debates. Since these new videos aren't debates they don't include a transcript analyzer like the previous ones did.

Take a look at the same tool for the November the 28th CNN/Youtube Republican debates (don't actually watch it though, I beg you). It includes both an interactive transcript (including skipping) and an analyzer showing among other things the time spent on the questions per candidate basis and highlighting to see when they spoke during the debate.

Here's a little something I at the time looked at. Ron Paul was only given 7 minutes of speaking time while the so called front runners were given around 14 minutes, and most of the questions were hostile in nature. Even the moderator had more speaking time than Ron Paul. They also didn't follow their own rules and give him time to respond when Tancredo directly mentioned him, after which he wasn't given a question for 25 full minutes.

Progress..

[B5_geek]

What I like about this is that it represents an evolution of technology and not just mundane rehash of an existing idea.

Take Youtube for example. It is an internet Monster, both in terms of # of people viewing AND # of people contributing. It is nothing more then a modern take on "Home Movies" and Americas Funniest Home Videos.

This idea that the NYT has implemented is just one step away from bringing awesome to ALL forms of information. I wish I could invest money in an idea, because this will be everywhere soon.

I'm geeked about it.

Re:Progress..

[samcan]

What about an open standard for implementing this kind of technology? Say an XML file containing relevant video file names for the different paragraphs. If someone can get an open source tool together once a standard has been created, it really could be some killer tech.

An example use case in the music academic world may be something where a click on a measure of sheet music in the viewer would link to a recording of the piece, cued up to that point. Kind of like scene selection on DVDs. Or perhaps a click on a paragraph in an e-book would cue up an audiobook recording.

One problem I foresee is that it kind of seems like a modification of hyperlinking. Isn't this what hyperlinking was supposed to bring us?

Re:Progress..

[QuantumG]

How about just using one of the existing subtitle formats. SRT or SUB. They look like this:

31
00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:28,394
I want them dead.

32
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:42,558
That I cannot do.

33
00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:46,036
I'll give you anything you ask.

34
00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:52,633
I've known you many years, but this
is the first time you've asked for help.

35
00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:58,799
I can't remember the last time
you invited me for a cup of coffee.

36
00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:03,269
Even though my wife is godmother
to your only child.

37
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:08,190
But let's be frank here.
You never wanted my friendship.

38
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:11,915
And you were afraid to be in my debt.

Personally, I'd be much more impressed if you could take a file without the markers and infer them from the audio.. but that would take some serious speech recognition technology.

Re:Progress..

[Airw0lf]

Take Youtube for example. It is an internet Monster, both in terms of # of people viewing AND # of people contributing. It is nothing more then a modern take on "Home Movies" and Americas Funniest Home Videos.

You have a point there. But I do like some of the new features, like the ability to have keywords and comments pop-up during a video. It's pretty cool to see supplementary information like that, and it's a similar concept to what the NYT is doing...

Waste of bandwidth

[zazenation]

WHAT?
I should check this out this hitech fob and miss the re-re-reruns of "The Beverley Hillbillies " and "Gilligan's Island"?
No WAY!
Give Me Elli Mae and Mary Ann
ANYDAY!

Re:Waste of bandwidth

[CrkHead]

For those with a different music taste, that's a take on the Dead Kennedy's classic "TV Party"

NYT Charts of most Commonly Used Phrases

[Airw0lf]

Check it out... http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/04/us/politics/20080905_WORDS_GRAPHIC.html This link looks at both conventions and tries to quantify the major themes each party has tried to highlight. Unsurprisingly the DNC is leading on "Change", but Biden has used the term more than Obama during the conventions. However, I refuse to believe that Rudy Giuliani referenced 9/11 only once! This is the guy who could bring 9/11 into a discussion on public health for crying out loud!

Re:NYT Charts of most Commonly Used Phrases

[internic]

I think Joe Biden actually said it best, "Rudy Giuliani. There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else!"

is it just me?

[DragonTHC]

I wondered if I was the only one who thought John McCain's speech was poorly delivered? There were several hiccups with his performance that led me to believe there was a problem with the teleprompter.

Not only that, but a bit puzzling. My wife is a teacher and a damn good one, and I can't figure out McCain's education platform. It sounds to me like he wants to privatize the education system in America. Are my children going to be attending Halliburton Elementary #1138?

Re:is it just me?

[Airw0lf]

My wife is a teacher and a damn good one, and I can't figure out McCain's education platform.

There's nothing to fear my friend. McCain isn't going to change a thing about America's great education system. I mean, he depends upon his schooling everyday as he ponders developments along the Iraq-Pakistan border...

Re:is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds to me like he wants to privatize the education system in America. Are my children going to be attending Halliburton Elementary #1138?

Not unless you want them to do so. It's school choice not privatization. Existing public schools would have to compete for students on a more level playing field. The federal dollars would follow the child.

This would have high impact in places like Chicago, where 42% of teachers send their own kids to private schools. It would have much less impact in places where the public schools are good.

Re:is it just me?

[varkatope]

No, it's not just you.

The speech was devoid of many specifics and lacking in gusto, but at least it was long... The stream of random sentences at the end was a particularly odd touch, along with the "fight with me," fight, fight, fight thing at the end. Why is everything so damn violent at the RNC? RNC = Fight, drill, attack, pit-bull, etc, DNC = hope, change, diplomacy, community service, etc.

McCain seemed to imply that he would put school vouchers back on the table, though he didn't call them out by name, likely on purpose.

The next guy who says "Drill, baby. Drill!" gets a punch in the throat.

Re:is it just me?

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I seriously doubt it. Even if McCain wins the Dems are likely to keep control of at least one house of Congress. Given the state of public education in the US today though, they'd probably be better off if they did.

Re:is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

How will this help improve the schools? That's the part I still don't get. It's like the idea of punishing bad schools by taking away their money and making them worse...

Will school vouchers cover the cost of private school tuition? If not, how will this prevent private schools from becoming mediocre if they are filled with more kids but not making the expected higher revenue?

Re:is it just me?

[Poppa]

I do know that Sarah had a problem with her teleprompter. It wasn't stopping for applause. This is why she quipped the pit bull joke.

This shows how amazing this woman is. After all of the vile attacks from the Left, this woman showed how strong she is and was able to deftly handle the teleprompter problem on top of all of the other pressure she was facing.

Re:is it just me?

[JackieBrown]

If the public schools do not get better, there will be plenty of new private schools to take those children if vouchers ever get implemented.

Re:is it just me?

[everphilski]

I realize it's an old post, but McCain has never been a good speech-giver. He's much better in the town hall setting - which is why they modified the stage so he was in the middle of a crowd of people to give him the feel of being in the middle of a town hall. And good in the debate structure.

That being said a lot of professional critics said, for a McCain speech, it was pretty good.

What will be truly interesting is the debates. Obama is an orator - he lives and dies by the teleprompter. McCain is the exact opposite, he is not an orator but he does well at the debate and town hall type format. I submit two examples: (1) the Saddleback interviews, which the media overwhelmingly claim McCain "won", and (2) the fact that Obama will not consent to McCain's proposal to have multiple town hall meetings to address the concerns of the common people.

It'll be interesting how it swings things. Not only did McCain have higher viewer ratings than Obama for convention speeches with a poorer speech, but he might just beat out Obama in the three upcoming presidential debates, due to reasons cited.

High tech is great, but...

[charlesbakerharris]

Can't they get some better columnists? Maureen Dowd links in their pages are wasting my bandwidth.

Speaking of transcripts...

[JimboFBX]

I looked at Palin's speech, and MSNBC and CNN both had identical transcripts, complete with spelling "nuclear" as "new-clear". Its like they both used speech to words software and didn't bother to proof-read the thing (or one of them did and the other stole it from them). Fox New's was different, it showed where breaks in applause / boos occurred and actually spelled all of the words right.

The Technology Is Already Here

[Nymz]

Sure, this is a nice interface, but it's missing a very important part... the speeches! I see only the tiniest fraction of convention speeches up there, and doubt the reason is a technological one. The issue is financing, of how do transcribers of movies, speeches, TV, DVDs, etc. get paid.

Speech recognition software? No, that's been on the horizon... or a mirage on the horizon for decades. Not to mention that when we need it most, for the unintelligible bits, it's certain to fail. Call me again when they can auto-transcribe a song from Metalocalypse. If we want nice transcriptions, then I think we are going to have pay for them.

Closed captions

[tepples]

YouTube has since introduced support for the common subtitle formats.

Personally, I'd be much more impressed if you could take a file without the markers and infer them from the audio.. but that would take some serious speech recognition technology.

That or a closed caption decoder.

Might they have been from the prompter?

[tepples]

I looked at Palin's speech, and MSNBC and CNN both had identical transcripts, complete with spelling "nuclear" as "new-clear". Its like they both used speech to words software and didn't bother to proof-read the thing

Or they both took their transcripts from the electronic cue cards that Ms. Palin was reading so that she wouldn't make a Bush of herself by saying "nucular".

And $3.29 is your change

[tepples]

Unsurprisingly the DNC is leading on "Change", but Biden has used the term more than Obama during the conventions.

Might that be because change is all that's left in American pockets after various taxes?

Re:And $3.29 is your change

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the people making over $250,000 per a year are going to be hurting.

People making less get tax breaks. Under Obama, they get much bigger tax breaks.

I know who I am voting for. The one who cares about regular people. Not John "I don't know how many houses I have" McCain.

Real McCain of Genius

Re:And $3.29 is your change

[zonker]

More likely that all of our money has gone to stupid wars for stupid reasons and we'll never see any meaningful positive outcome from them nor will we finish paying for them in our lifetime. No you're right. It's all about taxes. /sarcasm

Instant Loser

[bitspotter]

I hate to be able to jump to conclusions so quickly, but I can't copy & paste sections of the speech for quotation. That's the very first thing I tried to do. I realize Flash is currently the sweet spot for this kind of close integration with video, but the inability to highlight and copy content makes this a pretty big loser right out of the gate. I know you can copy & paste with Flash, but the only reason I can't fix this bug is because of it being a proprietary format.

Evolution of video content to suit a new medium

[ofcourseyouare]

This is not just "politics" story. It's also a "media/tech" story - a story about how the opportunities offered by tech will inevitably change media, in this case video.

You'll be amazed to hear that the internet is an interactive medium and TV/cinema usually are not. Yes, I know you know that -- but nevertheless, the vast majority of videos posted online act as if there was no difference between the internet and TV or cinema. Youtube is fun, and has plenty of interaction before or after the video - but once you press play, it's no more interactive than "Casablanca".

The situation today mirrors the early days of film, when many filmmakers thought that cinema was simply a new method of distribution for filmed theatre and music hall content. But eventually the medium asserted itself and true cinema was born. How will this happen with online video?

Well, things like this NYT site are part of the start. And Youtube has just started allowing "annotations" which can include hyperlinks to other videos.

But the real change will only happen once the people *shooting* the video start concieving, scripting, shooting and editing specifically for interactive, online use. Wikipedia has some interesting examples under "interactive video". One note: most of the successful examples are non-fiction, because of the well-known problems with combining traditional linear storytelling and interaction in any medium.

So yes, it's an interesitng site. And it's the start of a big change, as online filmmakers slowly start to follow the most basic creative rule of all: use the medium.

It's the economy, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

After the cold hard realities of the past eight years, can we really still blame taxes for our economic problems?

P.S. How do you like the federal government spending billions of our tax dollars to bail out failing companies? A small investment in regulation would have paid off a hundredfold.

gaah, come on, at least TRY

[krog]

Black Flag wrote "TV Party", and your parody did not come close to evoking the original. And Damaged is one of my favorite albums.