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IETF Meeting vCons

This repository contains vCon (Virtual Conversation Container) files for IETF working group sessions from meetings 110-125 (March 2021 - March 2026).

What is vCon?

vCon is an IETF standard format for capturing conversation data. Each vCon file contains:

  • Meeting metadata - Date, location, working group information
  • Video recording - YouTube URL for the session recording
  • Transcript - Full transcript in WTF (World Transcription Format) with word-level timestamps
  • Materials - Links to slides, agenda, minutes, and other session documents
  • Participants - Working group chairs and attendee information
  • Lawful basis - IETF Note Well documentation per draft-howe-vcon-lawful-basis

Repository Structure

ietf-meeting-vcons/
├── ietf110/          # IETF 110 (March 2021, Online)
│   ├── ietf110_6man_28833.vcon.json
│   ├── ietf110_httpbis_28597.vcon.json
│   └── ...
├── ietf111/          # IETF 111 (July 2021, Online)
├── ietf112/          # IETF 112 (November 2021, Online)
├── ietf113/          # IETF 113 (March 2022, Vienna)
├── ietf114/          # IETF 114 (July 2022, Philadelphia)
├── ietf115/          # IETF 115 (November 2022, London)
├── ietf116/          # IETF 116 (March 2023, Yokohama)
├── ietf117/          # IETF 117 (July 2023, San Francisco)
├── ietf118/          # IETF 118 (November 2023, Prague)
├── ietf119/          # IETF 119 (March 2024, Brisbane)
├── ietf120/          # IETF 120 (July 2024, Vancouver)
├── ietf121/          # IETF 121 (November 2024, Dublin)
├── ietf122/          # IETF 122 (March 2025, Bangkok)
├── ietf123/          # IETF 123 (July 2025, Madrid)
├── ietf124/          # IETF 124 (November 2025, Yokohama)
└── ietf125/          # IETF 125 (March 2026, Shenzhen)

File Naming Convention

Files follow the pattern: ietf{meeting}_{group}_{session_id}.vcon.json

  • meeting - IETF meeting number (110-124)
  • group - Working group acronym (e.g., httpbis, quic, tls)
  • session_id - Unique session identifier from the IETF Datatracker

vCon Structure

Each vCon file follows the draft-ietf-vcon-vcon-container specification:

{
  "vcon": "0.0.1",
  "uuid": "unique-identifier",
  "created_at": "2024-11-07T15:30:00Z",
  "subject": "IETF 121 - QUIC Working Group Session",
  "parties": [
    {"name": "Chair Name", "mailto": "chair@example.com", "role": "chair"}
  ],
  "dialog": [
    {"type": "video", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=..."}
  ],
  "attachments": [
    {"type": "agenda", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/..."},
    {"type": "slides", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/..."},
    {"type": "lawful_basis", "body": {"lawful_basis": "legitimate_interests", ...}}
  ],
  "analysis": [
    {"type": "wtf_transcription", "spec": "draft-howe-wtf-transcription-00", "body": {...}}
  ]
}

Data Sources

All data is sourced from public IETF resources:

IETF Note Well

All IETF meeting sessions are conducted under the IETF Note Well, which permits recording, transcription, and publication. This is documented in each vCon's lawful_basis attachment.

Statistics

Metric Value
Meetings 16 (IETF 110-125)
Total vCons 2,408
Date Range March 2021 - March 2026
Working Groups ~50 per meeting

Usage Examples

Python

import json

# Load a vCon
with open("ietf121/ietf121_quic_33502.vcon.json") as f:
    vcon = json.load(f)

# Get session info
print(f"Subject: {vcon['subject']}")
print(f"Video: {vcon['dialog'][0]['url']}")

# Access transcript
for analysis in vcon.get("analysis", []):
    if analysis["type"] == "wtf_transcription":
        transcript = analysis["body"]
        for segment in transcript["segments"][:5]:
            print(f"[{segment['start']:.1f}s] {segment['text']}")

jq (Command Line)

# Get all video URLs from a meeting
jq -r '.dialog[0].url' ietf121/*.vcon.json

# Extract transcript text
jq -r '.analysis[] | select(.type=="wtf_transcription") | .body.segments[].text' file.vcon.json

# List all working groups in a meeting
ls ietf121/*.vcon.json | sed 's/.*ietf121_\(.*\)_.*/\1/' | sort -u

Generation Tool

These vCons were generated using ietf2vcon, an open-source tool for converting IETF meeting sessions to vCon format.

To generate additional vCons:

pip install ietf2vcon
ietf2vcon convert --meeting 125 --group quic

Speechmatics Transcription

This repository includes tools to re-transcribe IETF meeting audio using Speechmatics for higher-quality transcriptions with speaker diarization.

Prerequisites

  1. Speechmatics API Key: Sign up at speechmatics.com and obtain an API key.

  2. FFmpeg: Required for audio processing.

    • macOS: brew install ffmpeg
    • Ubuntu/Debian: apt install ffmpeg
    • Windows: Download from ffmpeg.org

  3. Python dependencies:

    pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt

Usage

Set your API key as an environment variable:

export SPEECHMATICS_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

Transcribe a single vCon file:

python scripts/transcribe.py ietf121/ietf121_quic_33502.vcon.json

Transcribe all sessions from a specific meeting:

python scripts/transcribe.py --meeting 121

Transcribe a specific working group:

python scripts/transcribe.py --meeting 121 --group quic

Transcribe all vCons missing Speechmatics transcription:

python scripts/transcribe.py --all-pending

Preview which files would be transcribed:

python scripts/transcribe.py --all-pending --dry-run

Transcription Output

The script:

  1. Downloads audio from the YouTube recording linked in each vCon
  2. Submits the audio to Speechmatics for transcription with speaker diarization
  3. Converts the result to WTF (World Transcription Format)
  4. Updates the vCon file with the new transcription in the analysis array

The Speechmatics transcription is stored alongside any existing YouTube transcription, with "vendor": "speechmatics" to distinguish it.

WTF Format Features

The Speechmatics transcription includes:

  • Word-level timestamps: Precise timing for each word
  • Speaker diarization: Identification of different speakers
  • Confidence scores: Per-word and per-segment confidence metrics
  • Segments: Logical groupings of speech (sentences/phrases)
  • Quality metrics: Overall transcription quality assessment

Local Whisper Transcription

This repository also includes a tool for transcribing IETF meetings using OpenAI Whisper locally via faster-whisper. No API key or cloud service is required.

Prerequisites

  1. FFmpeg: Required for audio processing.

    • macOS: brew install ffmpeg
    • Ubuntu/Debian: apt install ffmpeg

  2. Python dependencies:

    pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt

Usage

Transcribe a single vCon file:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py ietf125/ietf125_quic_XXXXX.vcon.json

Transcribe all sessions from a specific meeting:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py --meeting 125

Transcribe a specific working group:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py --meeting 125 --group quic

Use a faster (smaller) model:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py --meeting 125 --model medium

Transcribe all vCons missing Whisper transcription:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py --all-pending

Preview which files would be transcribed:

python scripts/whisper_transcribe.py --meeting 125 --dry-run

Model Selection

Model Size Speed Quality
tiny 39M Fastest Low
base 74M Fast Fair
small 244M Moderate Good
medium 769M Moderate Better
large-v3 1.5G Slow Best (default)

Transcription Output

The script:

  1. Downloads audio from the YouTube recording linked in each vCon
  2. Transcribes locally using faster-whisper with word-level timestamps
  3. Converts the result to WTF (World Transcription Format)
  4. Updates the vCon file with the new transcription in the analysis array

The Whisper transcription is stored with "vendor": "whisper" to distinguish it from YouTube auto-captions and Speechmatics transcriptions. It includes real word-level timestamps and per-segment confidence scores.

Related Specifications

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request if you:

  • Find errors in the vCon data
  • Want to add vCons for additional meetings
  • Have suggestions for improvements

License

This data is made available under the BSD-3-Clause License. See LICENSE for details.

The underlying IETF meeting content is subject to the IETF Trust Legal Provisions.

Acknowledgments

  • IETF for making meeting recordings and materials publicly available
  • The vCon working group for developing the conversation container standard
  • YouTube for hosting IETF meeting recordings with auto-generated captions

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vCon files for IETF working group sessions (meetings 110-124, 2021-2025)

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