ScriptoSphere Audio Transcription Blog

How has the digital technology helped the field of audio transcription?

What we are getting at in this post is that today’s booming online transcription service industry has been helped in a big way because of technology and the advent of digital sound formats like MP3, WAV, WMA, RA, DSS, M4A etc.  Earlier, let’s say about 15 or 20 years ago, there was no way that online transcription companies would have existed, well because first of all the internet was not as widespread as today, and secondly there were no digital file formats available at all.

The process of converting voice to text became oh so convenient only because of the availability of internet in the 21st century, which meant that it was accessible to everyone at a nominal cost, and as the computers became cheaper, it made its way into almost every home.  Today, almost everyone can afford an internet connection, and this has made the process of audio transcription really that easy.

Before all of this however, transcription services used to operate out of yellow pages, radio and print advertisements etc.  And since there were no digital sound files available, that meant that transcription had to be done via tape cassettes, VHS or audio CDs, which meant using different players for each of them.  And of course, all of this made the whole process extremely tedious, painstaking, expensive and time consuming.

Today, the digital audio files that we’re talking about, that everyone is familiar with, for example MP3, WMA, WAV etc., these can be emailed to the transcription company, if they are small enough.  If the files are huge in size, transcription service providers like ScriptoSphere provide an upload page, where people can browse and select their audio files from their computer and upload it.

These files are then downloaded by the transcriber, who then transcribes it as quickly as possible with the help of a transcription software, a word processor software and several transcription equipments like a digital noise-canceling headphone, transcription foot pedals, sound amplifiers and so on.  After these files are transcribed, a highly trained and qualified proofreader then takes the transcript and edits it thoroughly, making the transcript much easier to read, grammatically correct, clean and concise and pretty much print-ready.

Because of the smaller file-size of these audio files, the whole transcription process takes almost only 1% of the time it used to take two decades ago.  This has proven to be extremely useful for people wanting to outsource their work, for PhD candidates who are also full time workers, for multinationals who can’t do this work in-house etc. etc.

Audio transcription rates

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Quick tips to help you save money when you get your audio transcribed

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!

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Have an audio that needs to be transcribed, but don’t know what to do? Let us help.

We get new requests from new clients regarding audio transcription on a daily basis, and so we thought it would be a good idea to make a post with useful information that could help these clients and save them some time.  I’ll illustrate this information in a few bullet points down below, so here it goes:

• Read the website first: In many cases, most of the information that you seek can be found on the website alone, and in ScriptoSphere‘s case, all the information that a new client may need, is given on the homepage, the Policy page, and the Terms & Conditions page.  Going through these pages will save you a whole lot of time.  You may also want to check out the Privacy Policy page.
• Your audio file format: Though ScriptoSphere has absolutely NO issues with whatever file format you may have, for your convenience it’s advisable to record your audio file in any one of the “lossy” formats or formats that make your file-size smaller, for example MP3, WMA, DSS etc.  You can do so by setting up your digital recorder or buying a digital recorder that records in MP3.  This way, when you upload your audio files, it takes lesser time.  This is hugely helpful especially if you’re running on a tight schedule.
• Be prepared to pay first: Because of certain inconveniences in the past, not only us, but many transcription companies around the web have become more wary of first time clients or clients who provide no name, no data, and provide an external email address.  This is why ScriptoSphere may ask you to pay us first before emailing the transcript to you.
• Specify instructions clearly for custom transcription: Always specify how you want the transcription done, whether it’d be verbatim transcription OR grammatically correct, clean and concise edited transcripts (which is what we do by default), and also if you have a specific template in mind, otherwise you may need to re-send the transcript and we may have to redo it.

Hopefully this post will help new clients with making key decisions, which in the end will help them and the transcription service save a lot of time and do the job in a fast and efficient manner and produce a highly accurate, clean top-notch quality transcript.

Pricing for audio transcription

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What are the perks of being freelance at-home transcribers?

Not everybody wants to take the risk of being a freelancer, because even there they seek for job security.  Freelancers have traditionally been writers, musicians etc. and lately there’s a big surge in freelance transcriber jobs.   Transcription service providers have been searching for good at-home transcribers for a long time now, and the need is only growing every day.

The perks of being freelance at-home transcribers are as follows:

• No boss: You work for yourself, and the contractor who gives you work can’t really be called a boss.
• Timing: You work on your own time (unless you’re working on urgent business transcription files).
• Cost: You cut major cost by saving on traveling, food and other expenses by staying at home and working.  Saving money has never been easier.
• More time for yourself: The time you save by not traveling or running errands, you spend with your family or take care of yourself.

Hopefully this post helped someone wanting to make the switch for a long time, or maybe some transcribers to feel good about their jobs during this stressful business transcription peak season.

Audio Transcription Rates

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Which are the most preferred audio formats by online transcription services?

While ScriptoSphere is fine with any type of audio format, there might be transcription services around the web who might need specific formats to work with.  This post is intended to help readers make some adjustments before starting to record, so that the process of converting voice to text later becomes much easier.

Digital recording is the most preferred format worldwide with any transcription service these days.  It’s because the resulting audio not only helps with transcription by being crystal clear, it provides that clarity in around the same file-size as that of an analog file.  Plus, analog recorders have already gone out of date, but there are still some available, which are cheap.

You have to be very careful while choosing a recorder.  The money you’ll save on the recorder, you’ll probably end up paying for the transcription, because bad audio file means more expensive transcription rates.  So, that’s why make sure it’s a digital recorder, and then read the info or ask the seller what’s the output format.

Most of the audio transcription companies around the web prefer MP3, WAV, DSS, WMA or RA (Real Audio) formats for sound files, and AVI, MPG, WMV etc. for video formats.  MP3 is probably the most preferred format because of its file size and quality, so it makes the process of uploading and downloading fairly easy.  It’s also the most recognized format, so that means almost any player would play it and you don’t need any special codecs.

Hopefully this post helped you.

Transcription Service Pricing

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You need to be multi-talented to be well paid in the audio transcription industry

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

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Important pointers for transcribers new to the transcription service industry

Have you recently landed a job with a transcription service provider or are working as a freelancer with many contractors?  Does it all seem a bit too tough and you find yourself getting impatient very often?  While all of it may seem overwhelming to many people new to this business, it’s all a matter of the old saying ‘practice makes perfect’.  To be an expert transcriber, while it may take months or in some cases years, it’s all about honing your skills, training your ear and hands to work in unison, in perfect harmony, otherwise it can become a brain numbing job.

First of all, when working on urgent files, such as in the case of business transcription (season at its peak right now), you have to really pay a LOT of attention to what you’re listening and typing.  The audio quality is not perfect, and the turnaround time is sharp, and I’ve seen many transcribers getting utterly frustrated, throwing their hands up when they can’t grasp many words.  Many new transcribers can be arrogant or maybe just overconfident, and type what they hear without thinking what it means in the context of the whole sentence, and thus we have some really silly blunders sometimes.

To avoid these silly mistakes, it’s very vital that a transcriber pays full attention to what is spoken during the conference or the interview or even just a dictation.  The mind cannot wander outside thinking about what you’re going to cook for dinner this weekend, it HAS to stay on the subject matter.

Sometimes words sound similar, and it’s the transcriber’s job to ascertain whether that word fits in that sentence or not, and that maybe another similar sounding word does.  It’s all trial and error until you get to a place where all your tools are working as they should, and then it makes the process of converting voice to text OR what is called audio transcription seem like a breeze of cool air.

Fee for Transcription

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Part 2 of our ongoing series regarding health issues many transcribers may face

This one deals with stress.

Yesterday, we talked about how long hours of desk jobs can create problems for your back.  Continuing in the same theme, let’s talk about stress and fatigue in the field of audio transcription today.  Transcribers, especially freelancers can work for extremely long hours to make some extra money.  Not only this, salaried transcribers who work for a company may also work over their limit to make some extra dough through overtime.

While, working hard is always an admirable quality that any transcription service would seek, we don’t want you to play with your health.  People who work this hard and long can have stress problems, especially keeping in mind the fact that it takes a few hours to unwind after a full day’s work.

Often we have seen that transcribers, when taking a break, remain at their computers, either surfing the net or playing maybe a little game.  This is not really the best way to go about taking a break.  Your body and your mind needs a break from the computer, and that’s why it’s best to get up and walk around, leave the computer area, maybe go to a balcony if you have one and get some fresh air.

A lot of people smoke like chimneys in their breaks.  While nicotine gives you the sense of relief, especially if you’re addicted to it, it does a lot of harm to your body over a short-term and long-term period, so it’s better to be off it.  It’s better to drink some water or some juice, or a herbal tea, green tea is also good.  You can also do some basic stretches to feel rejuvenated when you come back to your desk.

Also, it’s always good to finish your work ASAP, so that you have then more time to rest later, and you’re not in a big hurry to finish your work.  This always works.

Rates for Transcription Service

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