What Is Speaker Identification?

Direct definition

Speaker identification matches a voice to a known person or a previously enrolled profile. It is a biometric or lookup task, not just splitting a file into Speaker 1 and Speaker 2.

The sections below explain how speaker identification is used in transcription and subtitle work, what people often mix up, and which VideoText workflow applies when the next step is a file or review pass.

Key takeaways

• Identification needs a gallery or enrollment data.
• Diarization can run without knowing anyone’s name.
• VideoText’s labeled speakers are diarization-style labels unless a reviewer names them.

The thing people often get wrong

Product pages that say “identify speakers” often mean diarization. Ask whether the system knows the people in advance or only separates voices.

Related terms

• speaker diarization
• speaker labels
• All glossary terms

Sources

1. NIST: Speaker Recognition Evaluation