What is beam size?

[vadi2]

Beam size seems to be a significant hyperparameter for faster-whisper's performance - is there an explanation for what it is anywhere?

[guillaumekln]

Search for "beam search". For example Wikipedia has an entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_search

The beam size, a.k.a. beam width, controls the number of paths that are explored at each step when generating an output.

[vadi2]

Thanks!

[Geremia]

@vadi2 I asked your question on AI StackExchange and got at least one good answer.

[richmailYT]

Does a bigger beam size increase the time it takes to transcribe an audio file? Is there an optimal beam size? Does a bigger beam size increase the accuracy of the final transcription?

[meet1919]

@richmailYT

Does a bigger beam size increase the time it takes to transcribe an audio file? Is there an optimal beam size? Does a bigger beam size increase the accuracy of the final transcription?

As the transcribe() function has 5 as the default beam_size so I guess it should be the optimal beam size, but you can still play with it. According to this

Search for "beam search". For example Wikipedia has an entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_search

The beam size, a.k.a. beam width, controls the number of paths that are explored at each step when generating an output.

More the paths explored more are the chances to reach the goal and prevent it from getting pruned and it will increase the time it takes to transcribe.