Say hello to audio transcription

Many people, in a variety of professions, use audio transcription services to save time, gain insight and benefit from an accurate textual account of verbal messaging.

If you’re reading this article, you’re either looking for a transcription service or you’re contemplating venturing into the field of turning audio recordings into writing.

Either way, this article will clarify some key points and guide you toward a better understanding of transcribing audio to text, the benefit it provides and who it helps.

Audio transcription is the process of converting the spoken language into written format. Due to audio technology enhancements, especially in the field of voice recognition, many people now opt to use automated software for transcribing audio into text. However, the best transcription services remain professional, human transcriptionists.

An experienced transcriptionist has many skills, enabling them to produce high quality written reports from audio or video recordings. People can draw insight from their collective memory, which means they can accurately convey terms and phrases used in a specific context, whereas a machine cannot correctly transcribe real-world audio involving multiple dialects and all kinds of background noises.

Most transcription services are done by machine and thus fairly cheap, unfortunately, because machines cannot yet understand emotions or accents, the transcription quality is poor. 121 Captions use stenographers, which cost more but produce accurate, verbatim transcripts. In the end, a machine generated transcription can cost you more, due to poor quality, than a stenographer would.

Almost every business can benefit from transcribing audio to text, and they use it for various purposes. The seven primary industries for which transcribing audio into text is most beneficial include:

1. Academia: Many busy students record lectures and seminars to transcribe later and use for studying. Audio transcribing is also highly beneficial to students who have to conduct focus groups and interviews for their thesis. Qualitative research cannot be conducted without proper transcribing.
2. Corporate businesses: Recordings of interviews, teleconferences and meetings should be transcribed to ensure that none of the details are omitted.  Transcription services are especially important for businesses involved with market research and data collection – if you want to know what products or services your customers are looking for, you must conduct interviews and facilitate group discussions.
3. Deaf community: Many countries have anti-discriminatory laws with the aim of enhancing equal job opportunities. Thus, many companies provide deaf and hard-of-hearing employees with written versions of discussions and meetings, so that everyone is kept in the loop.
4. Medical Industry: Medical transcriptions from doctor’s notes and psychiatrists are very important when writing detailed medical reports, especially when used in prominent journal articles.
5. Attorneys and Law Enforcement: Legal transcriptions focus on audio and visual recordings from the legal environment, for example, legal depositions.
6. Media: Transcripts make great source material for journalists creating content. Other examples include transcribing song lyrics and videos for captioning purposes.
7. Insurance: Insurance companies are obligated by law to record their telephonic conversations to clients, and that audio recording must be made available in text upon the client’s request.

More benefits of transcribing audio to text

The legal benefit. A lawyer cannot possibly retain all the information presented during a court case. Transcribing what was said during the trial will tremendously benefit a lawyer by helping them find holes in the case and gain perspective.

The academic benefit. Conducting research and analysing all the data is a very time-consuming process, especially when looking for patterns and themes. Transcribing interviews and seminars can save academics countless hours of time.

The SEO benefit. The main reason you want your podcasts and vlog (video blog) to be transcribed is that search engines cannot “read” audio. By transcribing your audio and adding text to videos and pictures you can help search engines deduce what your content is about, resulting in higher search rankings.

Benefitting the deaf and hard of hearing. By transcribing the audio of movies and television shows and then captioning it, deaf and hard of hearing viewers can access this form of entertainment.

Before hiring a transcriptionist, it’s important you know the person or persons behind the service and their specific skill set. You’re not going to hire an audio transcriptionist working with the media to transcribe your court case.

Here’s what you need to take into consideration:

• First, determine the volume of work you need doing and the budget you have available.
• Determine the transcriptionists work experience and field of specialty, then conclude if their skill-set will fit your specific transcription requirements.
• Inquire about their turnaround time and basic knowledge of the topic or profession they’ll be
• Check out their client portfolio and reviews.

Audio transcription is a valuable means of conveying information in an accurate manner. It’s especially helpful when conducting research, during important court cases and in supporting the deaf community in equal job opportunities.

As part of our live captioning service, we also provide accurate, high-quality transcription that’s affordable and time efficient. Our skilled captioners provide real-time transcriptions for your business. We are also uniquely capable of assisting deaf and hard-of-hearing people with their transcription needs.

If you’d like more information about 121 Captions transcription services, give us a call or send us an email.