Importance

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Abstract

A method and apparatus are disclosed for identifying speakers participating in an audio-video source, whether or not such speakers have been previously registered or enrolled. The speaker identification system uses an enrolled speaker database that includes background models for unenrolled speakers, such as 'unenrolled male' or 'unenrolled female,' to assign a speaker label to each identified segment. Speaker labels are identified for each speech segment by comparing the segment utterances to the enrolled speaker database and finding the 'closest' speaker, if any. A speech segment having an unknown speaker is initially assigned a general speaker label from the set of background models. The 'unenrolled' segment is assigned a segment number and receives a cluster identifier assigned by the clustering system. If a given segment is assigned a temporary speaker label associated with an unenrolled speaker, the user can be prompted by the present invention to identify the speaker. Once the user assigns a speaker label to an audio segment having an unknown speaker, the same speaker name can be automatically assigned to any segments that are assigned to the same cluster and the enrolled speaker database can be automatically updated to enroll the previously unknown speaker.

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First Claim