[HN Gopher] Whisper.cpp v1.4.0
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       Whisper.cpp v1.4.0
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 123 points
       Date   : 2023-04-30 19:35 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | lastdong wrote:
       | Is there a static library implementation with easy to use
       | interface? Also think llama.cpp would benefit from having a lib
       | release. It would be great to easily integrate both projects in
       | existing c++ projects.
        
       | aaronharnly wrote:
       | What's the best-in-class Whisper implementation for real-time /
       | streaming transcription? I've followed the various posts linked
       | on this GitHub issue [1]; not sure if there's more out there.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/openai/whisper/discussions/2
        
         | cvwright wrote:
         | Not Whisper per se, but IIRC LiveCaptions is partially trained
         | using Whisper. It also works really well!
         | 
         | https://github.com/abb128/LiveCaptions
        
         | andrewstuart wrote:
         | There is a Tensor Lite implemenation but it might not be
         | maintained?
         | 
         | https://github.com/usefulsensors/openai-whisper
        
         | Zetobal wrote:
         | Works reasonable well in meetings.
         | 
         | https://github.com/davabase/whisper_real_time
        
       | simse wrote:
       | Exciting to see some parts now (optionally) running on the GPU.
        
         | rektide wrote:
         | Full circle eh. I wonder how well it compares to just trying to
         | use the actual Whisper models on a variety of existing GPU
         | capable bigger frameworks.
         | 
         | I don't know much practically about how hard it would be to
         | take the Whisper PyTorch (1 or 2?) trained models & to make
         | good use of them elsewhere. I expect Whisper.cpp probably
         | better caters to users, is more readily consumable. Doing the
         | same integer quantization that 1.4.0 whisper.cpp does would be
         | another ask: how hard would that be?
         | 
         | Fwiw, Whisper.cpp uses Nvidia's cuBLAS. There does appear to be
         | an AMD rocm port.
         | https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/rocBLAS
        
       | ftrobro wrote:
       | Tag v1.4.1 has been created, fixes bugs:
       | 
       | https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.4.1
        
       | sebzim4500 wrote:
       | Is there documentation somewhere on what the different
       | quantisation methods are actually doing? E.g. what is Q4_0 vs
       | Q4_1?
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | how soon do you think these packages and a model will be included
       | in modern OS?
        
         | nchudleigh wrote:
         | Probably really soon, especially on iOS/macos their
         | implementation is awful.
         | 
         | Until then... https://superwhisper.com
        
           | mk4p wrote:
           | I _want_ to check it out but I 'm reluctant when there aren't
           | any screenshots / demos, etc. (Mentioning in case you're the
           | developer)
        
         | ntonozzi wrote:
         | Not soon enough, the iOS transcription is terrible compared to
         | even the small whisper model. I really hope Apple revamps voice
         | recognition this fall, but I'm not putting money on it being
         | Whisper quality.
        
       | simonw wrote:
       | Wow, I'm trying out the tiny 31MB WebAssembly model on
       | https://whisper.ggerganov.com/ and it's working really, really
       | well.
        
       | ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
       | Is what?
        
         | speedgoose wrote:
         | It's an implementation of a speak to text software. Currently
         | the best open source one, if not the best.
         | 
         | Particularly you can talk to it with a "international" English
         | accent and it will work. Or French or Spanish or Norwegian...
         | and it will transcribe English.
        
           | canadiantim wrote:
           | So could you use it to translate audio of a foreign language
           | into english text?
        
             | Spivak wrote:
             | And OpenAI has a hosted version for just that
             | https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/speech-to-
             | text/quick...
        
             | doublebind wrote:
             | Yes. According to the OpenAI Whisper repo [0], when you use
             | the 'whisper' command line tool:
             | 
             | "Adding --task translate will translate the speech into
             | English."
             | 
             | I tried translating a conference with a German speaker. The
             | transcription was superb, but the translation no so much.
             | 
             | [0] https://github.com/openai/whisper
        
               | canadiantim wrote:
               | Ah I love the future. Thank you!
        
             | detrites wrote:
             | Yes.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | raybb wrote:
       | This is really awesome. I hope that that at some point the WASM
       | Whisper can be hooked up to WASM ffmpeg and let me drop audio
       | files of any kind into that site.
       | 
       | https://whisper.ggerganov.com/
        
       | tosh wrote:
       | Are there any end-user friendly apps yet that make whisper
       | accessible?
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | This mobile app uses Whisper:
         | https://apps.apple.com/app/id6443919768
        
         | Void_ wrote:
         | record a voice memo and receive it as email:
         | https://whispermemos.com
         | 
         | Uses OpenAI API so really fast
        
         | wferrell wrote:
         | https://github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz
        
         | tech234a wrote:
         | Another one for iOS though this one uses the small/medium
         | models which definitely pushes the system to its limits:
         | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/aiko/id1672085276
        
         | maccaw wrote:
         | We make both Whisper and GPT-4 available in https://reflect.app
        
         | itake wrote:
         | https://whisper.ggerganov.com/
         | 
         | does this count?
        
           | tosh wrote:
           | Oh nice, iirc it used to only have the smaller models there.
           | Thanks for the pointer.
        
         | coder543 wrote:
         | I've been playing around with various iOS apps today.
         | 
         | Someone else mentioned "Hello Transcribe", which is a cool demo
         | due to how real time the transcription is, but it's effectively
         | unusable for anything practical because it seems to split the
         | audio on 30 second chunks (and not in the contextual way that
         | Whisper normally does it).
         | 
         | Whisperboard is a free, open source iOS app (available on the
         | App Store) that seems fairly user friendly, but there are a few
         | crashes and bugs that the author is hopefully going to work out
         | soon.
         | 
         | Aiko is extremely simple to use, but it only supports the
         | "medium" model, so it isn't very fast, but the results are good
         | quality. Aiko is really designed to be paired with another app,
         | like the Apple Voice Memos app, where you can share a voice
         | memo directly to Aiko.
        
         | guptaneil wrote:
         | This one is excellent on MacOS:
         | https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper
        
         | nchudleigh wrote:
         | https://superwhisper.com
         | 
         | a macos menu bar app that uses whisper.cpp under the hood.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-30 23:01 UTC)