Scribie.com

We have added new transcript order options in the Invoices page. The Option button just below the table brings it up. A screenshot is below.

A description of each of the option follows:

Flexible Delivery:

The Flexible Delivery files are delivered anytime with a week instead of the normal 1 day. If within the week we are able to fit in the file in our delivery schedule, we will deliver it. Otherwise you are guaranteed delivery on the seventh day. We offer a 10% discount for these orders.

This option has to be specified before the order is placed. It cannot be enabled/disabled afterwards.

Additional Proofreading:

Proofreading is part of our workflow where we correct all inconsistencies in the combined transcript. It drastically improves the quality of the transcript. For difficult files (eg. files with poor audio quality, background noise, speakers with unclear accents, non-native speakers, etc.) you can request an additional proofreading. We pay special attention to these files and ensure that you get an accurate transcript regardless of the difficulty level of these files. We charge an additional $0.50 per minute of the audio for additional proofreading.

This option has to be specified before the order is placed. It cannot be enabled/disabled afterwards.

Strict Verbatim:

Set this option if you want us to include all ah’s, uhm’s, umm’s as spoken in the audio file. By default our transcripts are non-strict verbatim transcripts which means that these filler words are not transcribed unless necessary (ie. for a affirmative or negatory answer to a question). However these filler terms can indicate hesitation or confusion on the interviewee’s part and including them may prove useful. If this option is enabled then all the filler terms will be included in the transcript.

This option has to be specified before the order is placed. It cannot be enabled/disabled afterwards. No additional charges apply for this option.

Time-coding:

By default we time-code the transcripts. The time-code is the time stamp of the audio when the particular paragraph started. It is useful when you want to cross check the transcript agains the audio file. Time-codes are formatted as H:MM:SS.

This option can be enabled/disabled anytime and is also available from the Transcripts page. No additional charges apply for this option.

Speaker Tracking:

Before each paragraph we prepend the speaker name or initial which identifies the person who was speaking at that time in the audio file. If speaker names are provided or spoken in the audio, then they are used. If not we use the generic format of Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on.

This option has two sub-options relating to formatting of the names. If speaker initials is chosen then the first occurrence will be the full name of the speaker and rest will be initials. Eg. if the name is Rajiv Poddar then the first time Rajiv speaks the speaker tracking will contain Rajiv Poddar and all subsequent one’s will be RP. This is illustrated in the sample transcript. If full names option is specified then the full name will be used throughout.

The Speaker Names link allows you to specify each speaker’s first and last name.

This option can be enabled/disabled anytime and is also available from the Transcripts page. No additional charges apply for this option.

Transcript Template:

The transcripts are prepared as a text file and before the delivery we convert the file to MS Word, OpenOffice Text and Adobe PDF format. We use a template for this conversion. There are four different templates you can specify; Scribie default template with single/double line spacing and blank template with single/double line spacing. The Scribie default template has a title page, a header, footer and the last page contains some stats. Pleas check the sample transcript for an example. Blank template  only contains the transcript. Double and single line spacing adjusts the spacing in between the lines in the delivered file. If you want your own template to be used instead then please contact support and they will help you out with it.

This option can be changed anytime and is also available from the Transcripts page and no additional charges apply for this option.

Our transcription service just got a bit better. Starting this month, we are moving from a 5-day work week to a 7-day one. This means we will deliver transcript orders on all days of the week. If an order is placed on Friday or Saturday, it will be delivered within 1 day; Saturday and Sunday respectively. Previously, all orders placed over the weekends were delivered on Monday. Not anymore. We will be delivering all orders within our usual 1-day turnaround time.

There’s no additional charge for weekend deliveries. The same rates ($0.99 per audio minute) and rules apply. Orders have to placed before 2:30 PM EST (US) to be delivered the next day. Orders that are placed after 2:30 PM EST will be delivered on the day following.

Get started today. Receive affordable, high quality transcripts of your audio files in one day. Start now.

https://scribie.com/files/upload/

We will be having a site maintenance on Sunday, 4th December, 2011, from 12:00 AM EST to 5:30 AM EST. During this period Scribie.com will be unavailable and offline. Once the maintenance is complete all services will be restored.

We have recently added two new options which can be specified when ordering Transcripts. A screenshot is below.

The first one is Flexible Delivery. If Flexible Delivery is enabled then the we will deliver the transcript anytime within a week as per our schedule. In the worst case the delivery will be done after 1 week. But it can also happen before that if we find a slot for it. We offer a 10% discount for Flexible Delivery orders.

The second option is Additional Proofreading. In our transcription process we do one mandatory round of proofreading. For Additional Proofreading orders we do a second round of proofreading as well. This is useful for files which are difficult to transcribe, i.e. files which poor audio quality where the speakers can’t be heard clearly or which have noisy environment, or files which have non-native speakers whose diction is hard to comprehend. We charge $0.50 per minute extra for this option.

In addition to these options we have also do more quality checking than before. We also pay more attention to blanks which are leftover after proofreading and try to correct them as much as possible.

We’d like to thank you for using our service and your valuable feedback.

We have moved to a new domain; Scribie.com. All the accounts data from CallGraph.Biz has been migrated to Scribie.com. If you had an account on CallGraph.Biz then you can now login to your Scribie.com account and check.

https://scribie.com/account/login

With Scribie.com the focus is more on our audio transcription service. We have been working on our outsourcing platform for a long time and we are very confident about it. It’s the best audio transcription service you’ll find out there.

We have also discontinued the online backup and Skype Group Collaboration services. We are not accepting new accounts for those. If you had been using those services then your files will still be available and you can still keep uploading. But, we are not planning to add any new features or maintain it.

We still offer the CallGraph Skype Recorder for free and plan to continue working on it.

Scribie.com is now PCI DSS Compliant.

PCI Compliance is an essential requirement for processing credit card payment on any website. This certificate shows that Scribie.com adheres to PCI compliance standards. We do not store any credit card data on our server anytime; not in logs, not in the database or anywhere else. The data is passed securely using HTTPS to our payment processor’s gateway, Braintree Payments. Braintree is itself PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and they talk to the merchant account providers to charge the credit card. We are responsible with your credit card data and ensure that your data is not compromised in any way when you make a payment on Scribie.com.

We now offer two types of transcript: Draft and Proofread. If you plan to do a comprehensive review of the transcript then you can choose the Draft Transcript Type while ordering. The Draft Transcript is not time coded and the speakers are not tracked in it. It contains just the text of the audio file with each speaker’s diction paragraphed neatly.The rate for the Draft Transcript is $0.60 per minute. Therefore for a 1 hour file it will cost $36.

The Proofread Transcript on the other hand requires minimal or no editing on your behalf. This type of transcript is time coded and speakers are tracked with initials. The blanks are marked with a time-stamp to make it easy to locate it in the audio file and correct it. We also do a complete review. This includes researching any terms that might occur in the audio and finding out the correct usage, correcting mistakes,  filling in blanks, etc. We also ensure that the quality is as high as possible. The rate for the Proofread Transcript is $0.75 per minute of recorded audio. Therefore for a 1 hour file it will cost $45.

This gives you a bit more flexibility while ordering the transcript. The most time consuming part while transcribing an audio is typing; thats the heavy lifting part. In the Draft Transcript we do the heavy lifting for you and you can then review it and modify it as per your need.

We now offer only Proofread transcripts at $0.99 per minute of audio.

Monetizing podcasts is hard, very hard; as lot of other startups in the podcasting space found out. The best way is to get a sponsorship from someone who is interested in marketing to the niche you are targeting. If you cannot do that then there’s always Google AdSense. We at CallGraph believe that the best way would be to sell transcripts of your podcasts.

It sounds counter-intuitive. Podcasts by definition are something people would only  want to listen to; not read. But as we have seen and experienced, a lot of people already get their podcasts transcribed and provide the transcript along with the mp3 file. Why? Because reading is faster than listening; the transcript is good for SEO purposes; effective contextual advertisements, to list a few reasons. But transcription involves its own time and effort and therefore, cost. Hence not every podcaster gets their files transcribed and gives it away for free. This is where our Podcast Publisher Program comes in.

It enables you sell transcripts of your podcasts directly at your website without doing much. You have to host your files on CallGraph and use our widget. Your listeners can still download the file and/or listen to it online. But if they want, they can also buy the transcript and read instead of listening to your podcast. The money that you earn from each sale is then credited to your CallGraph account where it accumulates. You can withdraw your earnings to your PayPal account anytime you wish. We keep 20% of the sale value as our cut.

The widget we provide is basically a player for your podcast, along with the transcript. To get the widget you first have to sign up as a podcast publisher on CallGraph, host your files on CallGraph and order a transcripts for them. You can then embed the widget into your site or anywhere else (YouTube like). The ‘Transcript’ button on the widget provides a sample transcript and options to buy the full transcript. We host the files and transcript and ensure that your customers get what they pay for.

You can also set a base price for your transcripts, offer discounts, packages etc. to your listeners. You can also offer it for free if you want. We just handle all the complexity and do the transcription work. We also provide a RSS feed which you can use as your podcast feed. It is also compatible with iTunes.

Sounds interesting? Go here and sign up now for the private beta. We will be rolling out the private beta shortly. See you there!

Deliveries: The delivery slabs are now 3 days, 1 day and 12 hours instead of 7 days, 3 days and 1 day respectively. The rates remain the same.

Video Files: You can upload video files and have them transcribed. We support wmv, avi, flv, mpg, mp4 and mov files. The files are converted to mp3′s and then you can order transcripts.

URL Upload: Files can be uploaded by URL’s. Eg. YouTube links or podcast links.

Partial Transcripts: After ordering the transcript you can view partial transcripts. The option is in the actions menu in the transcripts page.

Order Cancellation: After the transcript order has been placed you can cancel the order and we’ll refund the applicable amount to you. The applicable amount is calculated from the transcript progress.

Tools: We have also added a slew of tools to modify/clean up the transcripts after they have delivered. The timestamps, speaker initials, blanks and all meta information can be removed. A simple find a replace tools has also been added. These options are available from the actions menu in the transcripts page. The transcript text can also be copied directly to the clipboard from as opposed to download the files.

Thank you for using Call Graph! Comments/feedback are most welcome.

New Features/Enhancements

• Ability to set the timestamp format in the file name. There are 9 presets available.
• The toolbar and icons have been redone. Better graphics and looks.
• The system tray icon now has a indicators for recording and Skype authorization.
• New option in popup menu which shows the last notification message.

Bug Fixes

• The echo/lag issue has been fixed.
• MP3 conversion failure for files with apostrophe’s in their names has been fixed.
• Crashes when exiting Call Graph has been fixed.
• The flash plugin in Call Graph Browser has been updated to the latest version.

Please upgrade now. Do not forget to authorize Call Graph after the update. As always, comments and feedback is most welcome.