Is the Azure Cognitive Speech Studio , Nuget package supports only .WAV file as input?

Question

I was trying to use the Microsoft.CognitiveServices.Speech nuget package to transcribe an audio file into text, but when working I could only convert an .WAV file and no other formats such as MP3, MPEG etc, Does the package only supports .WAV files? or is there any specific parameters to be passed to the function FromWavFileInput(), to support other file formats?

Answer 1

Hi ARUN JOSEPH
Hope you are doing well.

I apologize for the confusion. You are correct that the FromAudioFileInput method is not a valid method in the Microsoft.CognitiveServices.Speech NuGet package. The correct methods for reading audio data from a file are FromWavFileInput and FromStreamInput.

I apologize for any confusion my previous response may have caused. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

You can use the AudioConfig.FromStreamInput method to read audio data from a file in any supported format.

The AudioConfig.FromStreamInput method is particularly useful for handling audio files in formats other than WAV, such as MP3. To use MP3 or other compressed formats, the Speech SDK relies on GStreamer to decode the audio.

To configure this:

1. Install GStreamer on your system and ensure its binaries are added to your system's PATH.
2. Use the AudioInputStream.CreatePullStream or AudioInputStream.CreatePushStream methods to set up a stream for the compressed audio.
3. Specify the audio format (e.g., MP3) using AudioStreamFormat.GetCompressedFormat(AudioStreamContainerFormat.MP3).

For more information, please refer How to use compressed input audio
GitHub repository demonstrates the use of the Azure Cognitive Services Speech SDK.
If you continue to experience difficulties, please feel free to reach out and will escalate the issue to the appropriate team to ensure it is resolved promptly.

I hope this information helps. Thank you!

Answer 2

Hi ARUN JOSEPH
Greetings & Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum! Thank you for posting your query!

The Microsoft.CognitiveServices.Speech NuGet package for Azure Cognitive Services Speech SDK does not support other audio formats (like MP3, MPEG, etc.) directly through the FromWavFileInput() method. This method is specifically designed for WAV files, which is why you're encountering the issue with other formats.

However, you can transcribe audio in other formats (such as MP3 or MPEG) by converting them to a supported format (e.g., WAV or PCM) before passing them to the SpeechRecognizer.
Alternatively, you can use the FromAudioFileInput() method, which allows the SDK to handle various audio formats as long as they are supported by the underlying system.

var audioConfig = AudioConfig.FromAudioFileInput("path_to_your_audio_file.mp3");
var speechRecognizer = new SpeechRecognizer(speechConfig, audioConfig);

If you continue to experience difficulties, please feel free to reach out and will escalate the issue to the appropriate team to ensure it is resolved promptly.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you have any further queries.

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