One of our crew, Florina, tells us about her experience. “I remember about maybe two years ago I had to fill some form for the local authority and the clerk asked me what is my job.  Obviously I answered “I’m a transcriber“, and the clerk was confused.  So, I then had to briefly describe my job to him.  The final of this short story was funny, as the clerk still wasn’t able to figure out what I really do, so he told me, “Write there, PC operator.”

So, I thought it wouldn’t be completely useless to try and develop what is that we actually do in this field and what’s really this domain of work about, is the occupation of turninv voice to text needed in the 3rd millennium?

First of all, let’s describe what an audio transcriber does to earn his living: and to start at the most simplified level, we’re going to tell you that every audio recording that needs to be turned into a document, requires a human transcriber to do it.  Of course, there’s plenty of voice recognition software in the market to do this job, but at the present time these are as good as useless in cases of fast speech, foreign accent, multiple speakers, background noise, and of course if the file contains specialty terms, technical or more rare ones.

Besides, you need to train these robotic transcribers (voice recognition software) for hours and hours for them to understand different accents and difficult words.  You have to sit with a microphone and read passages to it like a parrot for it to actually do a half decent job.  Still it’s not good enough, because they’re good at getting what you say slowly speaking into the microphone, but when it comes to audio transcription, they’re horrible.  And until they perfect that system, which won’t be for a long time coming, you’ll have to do with us pesky transcription service companies.

Now, since we have clarified that, think for a second and try to find a use for this audio to text conversion operation.  The first thing that comes to my mind are meetings.  Can you visualize all those suited executives, board of directors, CEOs, businessmen that love to have meetings all the time?  Well there’s one piece of the puzzle, because when they perhaps need publish their conference call and make it available to the public, and to recheck what one or the other said at the meeting, they won’t go fast forwarding or rewinding throughout that audio file.  It’s much simpler to press Ctrl+F and find your keyword, isn’t it?

The main purposes of audio transcription include having a proper archive, publishing interviews in the physical printed form or web media, sometimes for SEO, for the sole purpose of having better ranking on a search engine, from helping the people with disabilities to read what they can’t hear, or helping a person remember what they said, transcribing radio shows or podcasts to make them more accessible to a wider range of audience, to adding subtitles to videos and even whole movies.

Picture a physician, a dentist, a psychiatrist who sees plenty of people every day, how would they remember each patient’s problem, their symptoms, their diagnosis, their medication? In a small town it’s easy, as physical files in a steel cabinet would do, but what about large cities with millions of people?  That’s where a transcription service comes in. The doctor simply speaks into a digital recorder, his assistant uploads the file on the transcription company‘s website, and the rest is taken care by the transcribers.

The list can go on and on and on, but the bottom line is that audio transcription is now applied in more sectors than you can think, and it’s growing every day by leaps and bounds.  The myth that audio transcription is an easy task, can be debunked in 5 minutes by you trying to transcribe even a 10 minute audio file with 99% accuracy, and just see how long it takes.  Feel free to contact us in case you have any doubts or questions.

Audio transcription pricing

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We have stressed time and again how important is really the quality of audio files that clients upload to the accuracy of the final product.  Today, we’re talking about the time factor in audio transcription, that is the time needed by a transcription service to convert audio files into a written electronic document (i.e. usually a doc file, also any other text editor), and this time it’s directly proportional, among other factors, to the quality of the recorded audio.

Let’s say it’s an interview, and if the client recorded it with a poor quality recorder AND/OR didn’t pay attention to place it properly and in the optimum positions to record ALL the speakers, especially when there are multiple speakers AND/OR neglected to make sure no background noise was recorded and the speakers weren’t crosstalking, then these factors can and will greatly influence the time needed to transcribe the audio with perfect accuracy.

In case of a bad audio file, the transcriber will need to rewind and re-listen multiple times to first identify each of the speakers, then to understand clearly what they’re saying if their voice is faint, or to try to distinguish who’s saying what when speakers talk in the same time.

In any case, having an audio file of, let’s say 30 minutes, won’t mean that it will take only 30 minutes to transcribe.  In the most ideal conditions, with only 2 speakers and crystal clear quality recording, an experienced transcriber will need approximately 2 hours or more.  This is mainly because no matter how fast a transcriber is, he won’t be able to keep up with the speakers talking in English, it’s usually double or triple of the typing speed.  This mainly depends on the speakers too.  If the speaker speaks faster, then it will take more time to transcribe.

Add to all this specialty terms or proper nouns, names, places, that you have to make sure are spelled correctly, which again results in time lost with internet searches.  These are some of the main factors responsible for slowing down of the transcription process.

Always remember: High quality recording –> lower final price –> lesser time needed to transcribe –> Higher quality transcript.

Audio Transcription Rates

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One of the most time consuming and trouble-making exercise for a transcriber is to search. Yep, I’m talking about using the internet to search for important stuff, or how it has come to be known these days, to “Google it”. Even if on a first glance you would be tempted to say “What does this have to do with anything?”, I’ll make this clearer for our clients.

You see, usually when we have to transcribe business meetings, earnings results calls and other conference recordings or interview audio files, nobody thinks about making a list with all the proper nouns i.e. names of executives, speakers, participants, analysts, company names, branches, subsidiaries, cities etc. referred to by speakers. Thus, it becomes the transcriber’s task not only to deliver an accurate transcript, but also to correctly spell the proper nouns so as to avoid confusion or even ridiculousness at the time the client needs to makes use of the transcript.

Let’s say you are the transcriber and at a point you hear a name, which you know is a proper and not a common noun, because of the way the speaker talks about it. For example, he could say “The Q1 production in our Quintata Florita gas field has a 10% increase compared to last year’s Q1.”  Now, this is an odd name and you wouldn’t, for the life of you, have any idea what that is.  This becomes doubly problematic if the audio is bad, and it’s something that transcription service companies go through on a daily basis.

This is where the skills of the transcriber in using search engines come into effect.  A clever transcriber or a proofreader would probably already have all the important websites and search engines open, or might even have the presentation PDF or slides ready to look for that name. Only after lots of trial and error can the right information be obtained. So, as before, this is to illustrate that the field of audio transcription requires much more skill than just to listen and type.

Audio Transcription Prices

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As a business company, you have to build the trust of your customers just like any other business enterprise.  Confidence building with clients is a very important factor, and also for them to see your service is reliable and that they can trust you with their personal or professional files, that often involves confidential data (PhD or some university project). You’d be surprised to find out that a confidentiality agreement is required not only in academic transcription and legal transcription, but many other fields.  Clients also need the assurance of quality and accuracy, but that can only be judged after they review the transcripts.

Now, ScriptoSphere has been delivering transcription services for many years, so I believe we would be qualified to underline and point out or even identify as a completely new feature, the key fields to assess an individual transcriber’s skills OR the services of an entire audio transcription company.

Ethical Code:

• Degree of professionalism: Not much to say here, it has to be proven with references or samples and trials.
• Confidentiality: Ask for a confidentiality agreement if you need one.  Any online transcription service should be gladly willing to sign it
• The human touch:  When contacting the transcription service through email or on the phone, the customer service has to be top-notch.  Not only do they have to be nice with you, that is a prerequisite, but more importantly they should be able to answer any and all questions you might have.

Experience:

• To gauge how experienced a company is, one should look at their testimonials page.  Of course, not all clients provide a testimonial.  The more experience a transcription service has, the more accurate and fast the transcription process would be.
• Database of specific terms – obviously in the fields in which they are qualified. This again can be ascertained with the accuracy and quality of the transcripts.
• Proofreading:  This is one of the most important aspects of audio transcription.  Once a file is transcribed, it’s proofread at least once, if not twice (in case of tough files).  This helps clean up the file a great deal and correct it grammatically, and also the resulting transcript is better since it went through two sets of ears.

It will be safe to assume that ScriptoSphere rates highly in the all the above mentioned key features, and you can safely choose us for the transcription of your audio files, you will always get the best quality at the lowest price, in the shortest time.

Audio transcription pricing

Upload your audio for transcription

Email us for a quote or further details: service@scriptosphere.com

In these times of economic instability, it’s obvious that everyone searches for ways to cut their expenses.  So, when you need your audio files transcribed, how do you achieve this?  The answer is very simple and you might have guessed it already.  The good news is that in the last 15 years, the internet has spred all around the globe.  Today, people get the same things done in mere seconds, for which they had to spend hours standing in queues.

You could say what has this got to do with anything?  So, here is your answer: the advent of internet and all the online services have given birth to outsourcing.  If you need to cut down your expenses and get your audio files transcribed at much, much cheaper rates with the same level of accuracy and quality, if not better, the best solution is to outsource your transcription needs.  You would want to take the following criteria under consideration:

• Choose an online transcription service, don’t try to do it yourself.  Anyone who has ever tried transcribing even 5 minutes of audio will tell you, that without the proper expertise and equipment, it’s a painstaking and tedious process.  So, getting an online audio transcription company will save you a huge amount of time and result in a much better quality of your output file.
• Precisely for this reason, the internet proves to be of tremendous help.  Spend some time searching for a proper transcription service.  It’s recommended to not choose a big transcription company with a big and fancy website, because usually they have high costs and no promise of a turnaround time.  So, while you could pay around $0.70 per minute, you wouldn’t know when you would get your transcript back, could take weeks or even a month.
• Do not choose a company situated in any of the western countries, because their expenses, as well as their wages, have to be higher since they have higher costs due to the maintenance of a large team, and auxiliary personnel (the web-page design and maintenance, for example).
• The so-called “third world countries’” workers are satisfied with much lower rates, due to a lower level of subsistence, but the level of expertise in the field of turning voice to text is the same, since the level of education is almost as good, if not on-par.  For example, a lot of multinational companies who outsourced their work in the last 20 years, found the same level of quality and a higher level of dedication, at 10 times lesser price!
• Do not be fooled by claims from other companies that they’re completely onshore, as they claim to be completely “in-house” either in America, UK or Australia.  99.9% of the online transcription companies get their job done offshore, most of the English related work in India, and also Philippines and Eastern European countries.  If you do even a little research, you will find this out.  The reason being quite simple, because it will be foolish, from a business point of view, to offer competitive rates while living in a western country, and still manage your business efficiently.  It’s impossible!

So, all that we want to tell you is to be prudent when making your choice.  Do some research first before making your choice.  Don’t just spend time on the first few pages of the search engines, explore some more.  You might find something much better and cost effective.  This is not an advertising message for ScriptoSphere, because we are already on the first page for many search engines.  This post is meant only to help new clients.  Hopefully it did help!

Rates for audio transcription

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We at ScriptoSphere make sure to have a team of professionals who display a broad and varied field of capabilities, whether it’s about the number of speakers in the audio file that needs to be transcribed, the language, the different accents or when it’s about the client’s specific requirements regarding the output file formats.

Let’s take them one by one:

1. File indexing: This feature is very useful for lawyers and their records.  Legal transcription tackles the conversion of voice to text of legal depositions for the court of law. The way legal files are transcribed, it means lawyers are able to research specific terms (or keywords) due to reference points placed in the documents, instead of going back and forth through the audio recording.  This is very helpful for summarizing and for synchronizing text to a video.  We are constantly on the lookout for professionals who can do all this effortlessly, and also training our in-house transcribers to become experts in delivering top-notch quality transcripts.

2. Time stamps or time coding: Our transcribers can place time stamps if the client asks for it, or as some would call it “time coding” in the transcripts to have a reference point – helpful in synchronizing text and audio, to get the exact time where there was a speaker change in an interview.

3. Legal use transcripts: As we mentioned in our previous posts, our transcription team is qualified to cover the following fields in legal transcription:

• Recorded Depositions
• Official Hearings
• Court of Law Proceedings
• Witness Interrogation

4. Special formats we process:

• Webcasts
• Analog or digital recordings
• CD/DVDs

5. Audio Transcription AND translations for:

• English
• Hindi
• French
• Romanian

Rates for Transcription

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An important part of our transcription services is the voice to text conversion of all law related documents, regardless of their recorded form.  In the legal field, depositions have high importance.  They are given under oath in front of the judge and the jury, and represents evidence to be considered every time someone’s guilt has to be ascertained by a court of law.  Depositions are recorded in the presence of attorneys in front or even outside the court.

In this particular case, the transcription team is required not only to have the most trained ear, but also solid, wide and deep knowledge of the legal field, especially specific terms and jargon, and this is the reason why not many audio transcription companies take on legal transcription assignments.  Usually in the case of legal transcription, verbatim transcripts are needed, to make sure that none of the details, shade or nuance in the voice of the person talking in the deposition is omitted, but of course this is not the only format the final output can result in. It depends mostly on the client’s request.

Important aspects to emphasize on, when talking about legal transcription:

• Full confidentiality guaranteed, official confidentiality agreement form signed and stamped by our representatives.
• Final transcript formatting according to client’s needs.
• Legal depositions processed are: page-by-page depositions; topic or chart summary depositions or even customized depositions, as per customer guidelines.

Do contact us for further details on: transcription@scriptosphere.com

Our rates for legal transcription

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This post is intended to help non-speakers of English, who are training to become transcribers, and may need some help on how to become better at this job.  One of the most basic activities done to heighten a professional transcriber’s accuracy is to keep the ear trained in that specific field.  In most cases, this field is represented by the English language, since at least 90% of the audio files to be transcribed are recorded in this language.  Here, we won’t talk about a transcriber’s job in the sense of typing, but only about training your ear to an extent that the process of converting voice to text seems easier.  Not many people can perform this job with high accuracy, and even if they get the accuracy part, it’s difficult to do it fast.

Sometimes the tricky part is the intensity of the sound, the speaker can speak in a whisper or sometimes can speak too loud.  A lot of times, the most challenging aspect is the audio quality, how the audio is recorded, the circumstances, the recorder used, background chatter, crosstalking, all contribute to how the final recording sounds.  Sometimes, the recorded audio is full of static noises, and the speaker can sound quite high pitched, and this requires a lot of sound processing to ease out the audio a little bit, or maybe use bigger headphones with more bass to cancel out the static.  Another challenging issue can be the talking speed, or the speaker’s accuracy of pronunciation.  On top of this, and more importantly can be the accent, because more often than not, the speaker’s mother tongue is not English.

While you may only get used to all this over time, it’s important to do some things to help yourself.  Some of the best things you can do to train your ear for these different aspects is to watch English movies, sitcoms, soap operas, listen to English music, read English literature.  Reading can make you acclimatized with many words, especially if you’re not a native English speaker.  When you’re watching movies, and if it’s too hard to understand, have the English subtitles on, for a start, and then as you become more familiar with the sounds, switch subtitles off.  The ideal thing would be to have not only Hollywood movies to watch, but movies from Europe, mainly UK productions, then we have Australian, or even some other TV shows or interviews with people talking in English with different accents.  Hopefully these tips would help you land a good job with a professional transcription service.

Audio transcription rates

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First, we have to define what the process of audio transcription is all about.  To define it simply, it means the conversion of audio to text.  A transcriber or a transcriptionist is usually the person responsible for this process.  He has to listen to the audio, what’s being said, recognize each and every word, and if the grammar is wrong, ascertain what would be right, and then put it into a written form.  A transcriber’s task is also to ensure the output format is exactly the way the customer asked for or at least adhere to the default format the company uses.  Then there are variations, such as the verbatim mode, where you have to put in all the sounds you hear (even if the speaker said umm, uh, a million times) in the transcript.  Another version is the concise version, which is grammatically correct, print or publishing ready, neat and clean, but still achieving 99% accuracy

• The first group that benefits from a transcription service are people with with hearing impairment, either on the internet or in the frame of any private business, and this represents an important helping hand in the process of understanding.
• Another important group are the people with cognitive disabilities that have difficulties in understanding an audio message and instead prefer the written form.
• Then there are people who don’t have a fast internet connection, and would rather read the information than spending probably twice or thrice the time trying to download or stream the podcast or a radio show in this case.
• Last but not least, the most basic SEO rule of thumb is that a website that provides not only audio files but also their respective audio transcripts is a website with a higher rank in search engines for their respective keywords.  This is proven, don’t take our word for it.  Making your content easily accessible to users means more traffic, and making your content readable to search engines means better ranking.  And, after all, this is what a website owner always aims for, isn’t it?

Audio transcription rates

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Previously on this blog, we’ve talked time and again about different aspects of converting audio to text, and even if we might have covered a large area of the audio transcription field, it’s possible that we may have neglected the very basic aspect of the transcription service arena, the fundamental and elementary things that don’t seem obvious for an experienced professional, but are very important for someone new to this job.  We thought it would be a good idea to make a list of things that can help new transcribers get started, just as we got started some years ago. So, here it goes:

1. Your output file format: Always save your finished document with the name of the audio file or the client name, so that you can distinguish both the customer for whom you do the job, and the order number or date if this is more useful.

2.  Speakers: Make sure to properly denote the speakers, whether it’s a male or a female speaker, or it’s the person taking the interview, or if there are multiple male and female speakers.  If you can hear the speaker’s name, then by all means use it, but it’s always a good idea to confirm the name first using the various search engines.

3. Formatting: Allow large side margins, maybe your client wants to add remarks, and leave a blank line between different speakers.

4. Create a backup: Always make a backup copy of both the audio and the output word document files.  You may never know what happens, so it’s better to be safe.

5.  Create your own little database: This is optional, but it’s very convenient to keep a detailed record of the files you transcribe, in terms of duration, number of pages, client data, date of receiving and the date of finishing the transcription, and of course the amount your client has to pay for your work.

This list is not finished yet.  Make sure to come back for the next installment!

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