This release provides new Improved language packs for all Speechmatics' 31 commercially available languages with each language now contain a standard and enhanced model. The standard is the default model with the same or slightly improved accuracy before. The enhanced model is more accurate for all languages, and must be explicitly requested in the configuration. The enhanced model requires more compute resources to run and specific hardware. Please refer to the Install/Admin Guide for our recommendations for running the enhanced model.
The legacy V1 API that the Batch Virtual Appliance currently supports will be removed by February 2022. The V2 API as used in the Speechmatics SaaS (https://asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/docs) is now supported in the Batch Virtual Appliance. We recommend all customers move to using the V2 API. Please see the section How to use the V2 API.
The new enhanced model requires increased compute requirements and new recommended AVX flags. Please check the updated system requirements in the installation guide and ensure your hardware meets Speechmatics' recommendations. Otherwise you may see a slow down in processing speed when using the enhanced model. It is also now necessary to run the appliance on processors that support AVX2 in order to take advantage of latest performance optimisations for both the standard and enhanced model for all language packs.
If you are importing an appliance through VirtualBox, and AVX flags are not automatically enabled, you can also take advantage of the the performance benefits from AVX 2 following these guidelines.
The following are known issues in this release:
| Issue ID | Summary | Detailed Description and Possible Workarounds |
|---|---|---|
| REQ-1409 | Proteus HCL with <unk> causes out of memory error | A custom dictionary list that contains the word ' |
| REQ-7549 | Memory leak affecting gRPC | There is a small memory leak in the gRPC Python server https://github.com/grpc/grpc/issues/5913. |
| REQ-10160 | Advanced punctuation for Spanish (es) does not contain inverted marks. | Inverted marks [ ¿ ¡ ] are not currently available for Spanish advanced punctuation. |
| REQ-10627 | Double full stops when acronym is at the end of the sentence | If there is an acronym at the end of the sentence, then a double full stop will be output, for example: "team G.B.." |
| REQ-10634 | Putting "-" as an item in additional vocab configuration will cause the container to fail | Do not enter just a "-" on its own in Custom Dictionary either as an additional vocab item or in the sounds_like property. Hyphens are still supported when entered as part of phrases or words |
| REQ-14402 | When running very large numbers of small jobs (less than 10 seconds) offline, this may cause some of the jobs to be rejected | If you encounter this issue, please ensure licensing is in offline mode when running the appliance offline |
Virtual Appliance image (OVA) for installation on:
See the Installation and Admin Guide for details on the minimum specifications for the VM. The maximum number of concurrent jobs (maxworkers) that you can run on a single appliance is 30.
| Variant | Image Size | Max. Disk Space | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|
| nano | 11GB | 40GB | en |
| mini | 19GB | 40GB | en, de, es |
| midi | 38GB | 60GB | en, de, es, fr, ko, ja, nl, pt |
| maxi | 65GB | 80GB | en, de, es, fr, ko, ja, nl, pt, it, da, pl, ca, hi, ru, sv |
| plus | 65GB | 80GB | en, cmn, no, ar, bg, cs, el, fi, hu, hr, lt, lv, ro, sk, sl, tr, ms |
Remove the license from your old appliance (see the Admin Guide), then re-import the new OVA and configure networking as per the Installation and Admin guide. You will need to re-apply the license code you have once the OVA has imported.
Upload the OVA to VMWare ESX, VMWare Workstation Player, or VirtualBox. See the Installation and Admin Guide for more information.
Further notes on IOPS requirements under heavy usage of the appliance are now provided in the System Requirements section of the Installation Guide.