Category: Quality Transcription

New Logo & Upcoming Feature Updates: Deepening our Commitment to Quality Transcription

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Logo Redesign and Upcoming Feature Updates: Deepening our Commitment to Quality Transcription

I am proud to share updates around the Scribie product and brand.

You might have noticed some visual changes and expect that more product upgrades are on the way.

For now, we’re thrilled to feature Scribie’s new logo, which you’ll now find throughout the website:

Our intent and concept for this icon is to symbolize the people and dedication behind providing you with superior quality transcripts.

We wanted to highlight the act of Scribie’s professional specialists listening to the file and producing an accurate, clean and crisp document. In the new logo, you’ll notice an illustration of a document and headphones.

We’ve also changed the font of our logo to a more modern and humanist font. Let me expound below…

Superior Quality Transcripts & Improving the User Experience

Our redesign efforts are to better outwardly represent our values, beliefs, and commitment to ongoing improvement.

We make it a point to listen to our users and customers to incorporate suggestions for certain features and improvements as they are on the frontend of our service.

We still have more changes on the way, including a refined user interface, as well as new features that significantly improve how you generate transcripts online.

We want our logo to display the actual human care that goes into our work to ensure meeting our high standards of accuracy, quality, and speed.

So, we took everything into consideration to design a logo that holistically represents our values and beliefs, found in the Scribie Manifesto.

Our Values & Work

We believe that our customers deserve the best possible transcript, regardless of the file that we’re supposed to work on.

We don’t balk at the idea of redoing the file as many times as required to ensure the superior quality that meets our strictest standards.

We have a quality assurance process that we’ve exclusively formulated to help us meet our commitments. This is our Four-Step Transcription Process.

Usually, transcription providers only incorporate two steps in their QA process. However, our four-step process guarantees accuracy, speed, and greater privacy.

Here’s how it works.

We split the file up into different parts, and then each part is reviewed simultaneously by certified transcribers/reviewers.

Afterward, the quality analysts–who are the best in the industry–review the accuracy level of the file. Only once the transcript meets our standard of 99% accuracy is it delivered. Otherwise, the file is again sent back for proofreading. This process will continue until it reaches our quality standard.

Our manifesto also revolves around our collaborators. We advocate fair compensation for transcribers. Our payment and systems have been built on this guiding principle.

You’ll find our efforts to provide impactful value to our customers, colleagues, and the community inherent in our projects and initiatives.

Recently, we launched the #Transcripts2020 initiative to help make voter information become more available.

As part of the initiative, we’re transcribing the 2020 presidential debates, major speeches, and other prepared statements by candidates, without any biased commentary.

These transcripts are available on the Scribie blog. While this information is free for the public, we’re fully compensating our transcriptionists for their thoughtful work.

We also believe in providing our transcriptionists with the best tools and software. While automatic transcription is advancing, it will not replace our transcriptionists.

Scribie is a high-accuracy transcription provider and human work will always be part of this process. We are building technologies to assist humans rather than replace them.

This leads me to talk about the future of transcription as we evolve and innovate alongside advancing AI deep learning technology…

The Future of Transcription

Scribie has always been maximizing automated transcription using deep learning to assist in the transcription process. (Check out our blog post on continual learning and how we built and trained our large deep learning and AI model.)

For the uninitiated, Deep Learning is a subdomain of Machine Learning. It makes use of Artificial Neural Networks that, in a way, mimic the structure and function of the human brain.

While our technologies and processes assist our transcriptionists with reducing the word error rate (WER) in transcripts, machines still lack a human quality: human parity. We wrote more about this in Human vs. Machine: Should You Use a Manual or Automated Transcription Service?

There have been plenty of breakthroughs in accessibility, AI, and speech recognition software. However, it’s unlikely that automation will reach the level of something we call Human Parity.

Human parity is a technical term describing how close AI is to humans in terms of performance.

For machines, it’s difficult to understand the full context of your conversations. Fully-automated transcripts will always be more prone to error compared to manual transcription.

Image Source: Unilad

It’s amusing to read about AI news lately, such as YouTube AI removing thousands of videos and mistaking robot wars as animal cruelty based on a limited set of indicators for video content restrictions.

Compared to machines, our manual-based transcription, on the other hand, by humans is more accurate because we are much better at discerning and recognizing the context of a conference call, webinar, podcast, or any kind of content.

Over to You

Are you in an industry that needs precise and accurate transcription services?

Scribie has always held accuracy, speed, and privacy as hallmarks of our services. We started this service in 2008 with the aim of building a system which can reliably and securely produce high-quality transcripts

With our newly redesigned logo, we hope to better reflect the humanism, innovation, dedication, hard work, and precision involved in our signature professionalism.

We value both our customers and transcribers and strive to continue finding ways to improve your experience.

Got feature requests? Help inform our product roadmap. Send us your feedback.

Financial Transcription Tips: Use Cases & Services

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8 Types of Financial Transcription Services for Businesses (Use Cases & Benefits)

If you’re part of a sales or finance team, you process mass amounts of financial data and figures on a daily basis.

This is why it’s crucial that you regularly record, properly document and distribute clear, accurate data.

You want your stakeholders to easily and fully understand the numbers and associated context in analyst interviews, earnings calls, or other financial presentations.

Company stakeholders, whether team members or the general public, expect your presentation to be a full and faithful account that will help them picture and appreciate what’s going on in the business.

How do you organize all that data into a presentation that clearly communicates your work and the business numbers to others?

I’ll go over what financial transcription means, the various scenarios that call for a transcript, some overwhelming benefits, financial transcription services, and more to help you create quality text version of your financial reports.

Let me begin this dive into financial transcription by briefly discussing what that actually means…

What is Financial Transcription?

Financial transcription, basically, is similar to any other business transcription service.

This type of transcription, however, mainly deals with financial data from audio recordings.

The transcripts help you extract the most valuable financial data for your company reports.

Effectively present and distribute information using transcripts.

Keeping track and properly documenting fluctuating figures are essential to manage company growth and operations and to avoid getting blindsided.

What are The Types of Financial Transcription (and Who Needs Them?)

Generally, finance teams in any business or trading sector need financial transcription.

Corporate firms may need financial transcripts at annual meetings with shareholders or investors, and sales and marketing meetings to gauge their financial health.

There are many reasons why a company would need to transcribe financial data. Here are some of the most popular types of financial transcripts required by firms:

8 Popular Financial Transcription Scenarios

  • Earnings calls
  • Annual meetings with shareholders or investors
  • Financial and sales reports
  • Business surveys
  • Analysts reports
  • Investor updates
  • Market research
  • Interim results

Let’s further explore exactly how businesses can benefit from recording, transcribing, and distributing these reports…

How Do Businesses Benefit from Financial Transcription?

First, a good financial transcript accurately delivers the full message.

It reduces confusion or misinterpretation, particularly when data is professionally transcribed by skilled specialists.

Of course, there are other options for recording data, whether through audio recordings or manual note-taking. However, a fully transcribed document makes it easier for audiences to digest the information without missing crucial data.

It also serves as a way for repurposing digital and audio content.

Financial transcriptions can give your business the flexibility to use it for other distribution content/channels.

A full financial audio or video transcript also becomes easier to translate to a different target language.

For example, after recording and transcribing a meeting with your team on Q1 finances, you can use the transcript as a report to send to other company members, along with a good summary which you were able to easily prepare based on the transcript.

Benefits of Financial Transcripts

There are some of the ways you can use text copies for your company’s benefit:

  • webinars,
  • written reports,
  • print publication,
  • reference for collecting and storing internal data,
  • and usable material for website content

Now that we’ve discussed why financial transcription is essential for finance or sales teams…You should also consider how you plan on implementing this process into your workflow.

How do you begin transcribing more of your meetings, conference calls, or research? You want to record and transcribe financial reports and meetings.

If you ask any experienced CEO or manager, they would recommend outsourcing the work to specialists for multiple reasons.

Let’s proceed to explore the logic behind outsourcing financial transcription services…

Why You Should Outsource Financial Transcription Services

Outsourcing gives your company several advantages over doing the work in-house.

When you outsource financial transcription, you get global access to professional and experienced transcriptionists. This enables your business to optimize work hours and operate globally from different time zones.

You also maximize efficiency and accuracy at a lower cost.

While your firm may have secretaries and assistants who can occasionally transcribe, it’s unlikely for them to match up with the speed and accuracy of a specialized transcription system that’s equipped to handle high volumes of data.

Here’s a quick rundown for the benefits of outsourcing financial transcription services:

  • Maximum efficiency and accuracy
  • Lower cost
  • Faster turnaround
  • Improved communications
  • Increased focus on your teams’ main tasks

With Scribie’s affordable rate of just $0.80/min, an hour of transcription is fairly inexpensive vs. having it transcribed by your firm.

Paying for high-quality and accurate transcription services is cheaper than introducing grave errors into your data.

Consider the potential added costs of inaccuracies or errors that may lead to ill-informed business decisions, as well as the benefits of keeping stakeholders up to speed.

The Case for Avoiding Inaccurate Transcripts

According to F1F9, which offers financial modeling and business forecasting to blue chip firms, Up to one out of five large businesses suffer financial losses as a result of simple spreadsheet errors.

See this case study of an erroneous do-it-yourself transcription by an accountant that ended up costing more for the company.

“Fidelity. The company’s well-known Magellan fund was forced to cancel a $4.32/share year-end dividend distribution. The problem? A missing negative sign. A tax accountant omitted a minus sign when s(he) transcribed the net capital loss (of $1.3 billion) from the fund’s financial record to a spreadsheet. This turned the loss into a gain, causing the dividend estimate to be off by $2.6 billion.” – Oracle

Familiarity with Financial Terminology and Concepts

Different transcription options are available, including DIY and AI-assisted transcription, like voice-to-text. Financial transcription, however, in particular, needs a high detail of accuracy.

“Transcription systems still cannot disambiguate homonyms like “for” and “four” or parse the contextual meanings of words like ‘account’ or ‘promise’…The inability of rudimentary transcription mechanisms to extract the context and meaning of a conversation renders those technologies impractical at best.” – Corporate Compliance Insights

Having your audio/video files transcribed by a professional with in-depth knowledge of financial terminology and concepts can give your business the accuracy and precision you need.

Over to You

Let’s recap. Why record, transcribe, and distribute your financial presentations and meetings?

Get on the record, instead of repeating the same message over and over again.

Habitually keep your stakeholders and collaborators up to speed with the numbers. Allow people to help by giving them the right and complete information in a format that’s presentable, easy to consume and understand–which they’ll appreciate.

Showcase your growth and provide context behind the numbers.

A written transcript is far better than distributing hour-long, raw audio or video files, which may include background noise, distortion, or banter.

Text is easier and faster to skim through, and it’s easier to repurpose for other types of content distribution. You (and your team) can repurpose the full text transcripts by picking the highlights.

Free your employees from the monotonous task of transcribing content. Allow them to use their specialized skills in areas that can improve productivity and profitability by outsourcing accurate financial transcription services.

Scribie’s certified specialists offer the most secure and precise financial transcription service, with centralized billing, team accounts, and more features designed for business and enterprises.

Our exclusively formulated Four-Step QA process ensures superior quality transcripts, with the highest accuracy and privacy for customers.

Let Scribie take care of of your financial transcripts. Order a transcript today.

6 Steps: Record & Share Successful Meetings

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6 Steps: Record & Share Successful Business Meetings

Yet another meeting is coming up. You want to find better ways to process the information, record and share all of the important discussions.

Writing or typing snippets of ongoing meetings is, admittedly, a bit archaic. We’ve all raced to follow and type points from a speaker. You tend to miss important points or accidentally misinterpret ideas.

The traditional meeting minutes are also usually incomplete, missing contextual details that can change the interpretation of conversations.

Recording meetings can actually be a seamless process, and there is real value in owning a full text copy, especially if the discussion is critical. To get started, simply have a recording going on in the background.

The best way to record and transcribe meeting minutes is by recording audio, then outsourcing to professional business transcription services to create transcripts of your recurring meetings.

Let me help you ensure that meetings throughout your day are maximized.

Here’s a step-by-step guide towards a successful and complete recording of your business meetings through transcripts.

How to make better use of meetings

Keeping text copies of your meetings helps you and your participants remember important points.

However, when I think of meeting minutes, hastily scribbled written notes that are incomplete and often indecipherable comes to mind.

Also, when team members are focused on taking notes, their focus shifts from the meeting.

That is why a good, complete transcript is important as a record for points discussed. It can be used for internal archives, sharing, or a reference for public-facing communications

Team members can review what went on during the meeting, while those who missed it can stay up-to-date with an accurate transcript.

Image: Transcript w/ timestamps and initials identifying speakers

In the meantime, as you record audio and have it transcribed, you feel safe with the knowledge that the text is accurate, truly representing the meeting’s content and purpose.

1. Prepare for the meeting.

One way of preparing for the meeting is by having an outline ready containing the purpose and points to be discussed.

It can be a simple outline of the topics or concerns to be addressed in sequence.

Make sure to distribute the outline to participants beforehand, so that they can prepare, as well, with their input and ideas around the topics.

An outline also makes the discussion go smoother, ending up in a transcript that will be easy to consume and a joy to read.

2. Use a good recorder.

Getting a clear audio recording ensures accurate, good-quality transcripts. It also makes the whole transcription process easier.

Place the recording device somewhere in the room where it can pick up all the voices of the participants in an even volume. This can be at the center of the table.

Placing it too near a single person might produce an excessively loud voice recording, diminishing audio input from other participants.

Here are a few recording software/devices that work well for transcriptions:

  • Your mobile device’s voice recorder for an on-hand solution.
  • Sony UX560 for crisp, clear audio in the most-common recording situations. It recharges via USB and lets you easily transfer files to a computer.
  • Scribie for transcribing audio/video recordings and online meetings

3. Introduce yourselves.

There is a reason why I’m suggesting an introduction at the start of the meeting.

You might already know each other and feel a bit silly going around the table for an introduction, but if you prefer indicating speaker turns in a particular transcript, this can be useful.

Company Meeting - Introduce Yourself

There’s a good chance that the assigned transcriptionist won’t recognize the identity of speakers.

Mentioning the names of meeting participants will allow your transcriptionist to include speaker names and associate a voice to a speaker.

Speaker names in transcripts let readers know exactly who said what during a meeting.

You can do this by having members state their names and a few things about themselves beforehand, such as their positions.

Scribie’s meeting transcription services, for instance, detect multiple speakers and attribute names to each speaker in the transcript.

4. Set meeting rules.

For crisp and clear communications, set rules for talking.

Setting meeting rules keeps the process smooth and organized. Discussions and points are heard and understood more easily by everyone, and every participant gets a chance to join in and contribute to the discussion.

This also leads to cleaner recordings. Clean audio files make playback and the transcription process afterward considerably easier.

Instruct participants to avoid interjecting and talking at the same time as this makes information hard to follow. In any case, with or without transcription in mind, we want to be polite and competent communicators.

Each speaker should finish before another can begin.

This helps others follow the course of the meeting, distinguish the points of a speaker from another, and produce a clearer, cleaner transcript.

5. Remove background noise.

Background noises can interfere with the recording of your meeting.

Prior to the meeting, remove any potential distractions or items that can cause background noise or audio distortion. This can be a noisy air conditioner, pen caps, doors opening, or others.

Background noises reduce the clarity of your recording, mask conversations, and potentially introduce mistakes in the transcript.

6. Hire a professional transcription service.

Once you have an audio recording, whether it’s in an MP3, MP4, or another file format, you have several options for transcription.

You can either DIY it, assign transcription to a team member, or outsource to professional business transcription services.

Scribie has the expertise and software necessary to quickly create your transcripts with 99% accuracy in your desired format.

Why Outsource with Scribie?

Scribie ensures that you get the most complete and precise meeting transcription services, with business features including team accounts and centralized billing.

Outsourcing transcription with Scribie has several benefits:

  • Invest more time and focus on the work you need to do
  • 99% accurate, quality transcripts by skilled specialists
  • Confidentiality and privacy
  • Save time and faster delivery
  • Team account: Grant access to your team members, share payment methods, files
  • Account credits: Add funds to your Scribie account and share them with your team members

Our exclusive, rigorous Four-Step Transcription Process provides the highest accuracy, quality assurance, speedy delivery, and privacy for customers.

Through business meeting transcriptions, you (and your team members) will never miss important ideas and topics shared during meetings or conferences.

Ready to transcribe your business meetings? Upload your meeting recording on Scribie for a transcript today!

Announcing #Transcripts2020: Scribie’s Transcription Initiative for the 2020 Presidential Elections

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Announcing #Transcripts2020: Scribie’s Transcription Initiative for the 2020 Presidential Elections

On this 4th of July 2019, we set out to commemorate the anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence.

As the elections are approaching, be informed and exercise your right to vote.

Scribie is pleased to announce our #Transcripts2020 project. The upcoming US presidential elections are scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and we want to help voter information become freely available.

Scribie’s #Transcripts2020 is a free transcription and social learning project.

We’re transcribing the presidential debates, as well as major speeches, and other prepared statements. Without any biased commentary, we provide the full transcript so you understand the complete context of what was said. And with all of our transcriptions, we maintain a 99% accuracy guarantee.

These transcripts are publicly available on Scribie’s blog and can be downloaded in various file formats as soon as the day after the event.

Also, in addition to #Transcripts2020’s transcription for the 2020 presidential elections, we want to help improve AI and speech recognition research. The entire bulk of the data set will be released to the public in open source MIT license once the elections are over.

We’re open sourcing the data set as our way of giving back to the community.

By the end of the elections, we expect to produce a data set with around 300 hours of content. You’ll be able to download the audio and text from Scribie’s #Transcripts2020 for your academic research or the advancement of machine learning and speech recognition.

Take note: Scribie does not endorse or condone any position regarding any political candidate, group, or cause. Our aim is to accurately transcribe historical facts and make these available for public record–free from partisanship and commentary.

Why We’re Doing #Transcripts2020

We are in the business of creating accurate records. In today’s age, when misinformation spreads faster than ever, our purpose has become more essential.

The upcoming 2020 presidential elections are a great opportunity for us to serve this purpose.

As a leading transcription service provider, flawless transcripts and fast turnaround time are the hallmarks of Scribie. So, we’re making important statements by 2020 presidential candidates more accessible to the public as a contribution towards social awareness and nation-building.

Scribie’s signature Four-Step Transcription Process guarantees superior quality word-for-word transcripts that are highly accurate, minimizing any chance of transcriptionist bias. We believe that it is our duty to ensure that the accuracy is superior and that the public receives the best possible transcript.

Most providers only have a single- or two-step process, which means transcription is determined by one or two individuals.

Scribie’s rigorous Four-Step Process, on the other hand, involves multiple QA specialists. This meritocratic quality assurance system ensures 99% or higher accuracy, reducing any chance of bias from individual transcribers.

The #Transcripts2020 initiative aids the flow of unadulterated information to U.S. citizens, academics, journalists, political analysts, historians, researchers, and the general public.

We believe this is important because many of today’s online resources, including leading publications, no longer offer the full transcript, instead, opting for out-of-context pull quotes which often change the original message.

You can check in on Scribie’s blog immediately after an event for a complete record. (We typically publish debate transcripts the day afterward.)

Use Scribie’s online resource to catch up on our blog or download your own text copy as a file for repurposing, writing a report, political analysis, voter information, or others.

Upcoming Events

Here are some of the upcoming events that we intend to transcribe.

There are six primary Democratic debates in 2019. In case you missed it, the first set of Democratic primary debates were held in June. (Transcripts for the June 26th and June 27th debates are now online.)

The next debates will be held on July 30th and 31st in Detroit, Michigan. On September 12-13 are the third democratic primary debates. The fourth, fifth, and sixth debates are scheduled on the succeeding months, October, November, and December.

We intend to publish the transcripts after the debates, notable speeches, and other prepared statements.

Advancing Machine Learning and AI

As the primaries continue, we’ll head the #Transcripts2020 project to provide you with transcripts of debates and other important prepared statements until the election.

After the completion of the project, we’ll release a free and open source dataset that compiles the associated audio and transcripts. This is to push forward the advancement of machine learning and academic research.

Through our #Transcripts2020 efforts, we’ll have approximately 300 hours of transcribed audio for machine learning purposes.

A decent, free data set of this proportion is hard to come by and should be extremely useful for researchers.

For the meantime, if you’re interested in a particular transcript, you can already download publicly available transcripts and audio files by clicking on the editor link.

Over to You

#Transcripts2020 will cover primary debates, speeches, major conferences, and other relevant prepared statements by election frontrunners according to polls.

For this initiative, we’re devoting up to 2% of Scribie’s operating capacity. While this is pro bono work, Scribie’s transcriptionist will be paid as usual. We want to provide our transcribers with a work environment that fosters their success and growth.

At this early stage, you can expect the mechanics of the #Transcripts2020 project to evolve. We welcome your support. You may reach out to us at support@scribie.com if you have any feedback.

Stay up to date on #Transcripts2020: bookmark this page.

9 Transcription Productivity Tips from Scribie Professionals

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9 Transcription Productivity Tips from Scribie Professionals

At Scribie, we believe in the importance of quality transcription. This is why we developed our signature 4-step process.

Let me note that our quality transcripts are made possible by our network of talented transcriptionists. We asked some of our pros to share some tips that help produce consistent, high-quality transcripts. Scribie pros, Martin, Danijela, Betty, and Sarah, share insights for how to be a transcriptionist and produce excellent transcripts at Scribie.

You may be a rookie transcriptionist or an experienced pro. Either way, you’ll benefit from these insider transcription hacks from Scribie pros themselves.

How To Begin Your Transcription Journey

1. Focus On What You’re Hearing

Betty suggests that you focus on the content.

Looking back I can see that I was hyper focused on punctuation and capitalization. I spent a lot of unnecessary time on those aspects. After a couple of years doing this it seems like those aspects are now much more intuitive and I focus more on what I am actually hearing.

2. Start Slowly

Sarah advises beginning Scribie transcribers to take their time to avoid mistakes and missing important key guidelines. She says,

Learn everything you can about the guidelines and how the process works. Study the changes made to your work by the QC and learn how to improve. Starting out slowly will likely help with gaining experience and enable a better and easier path to promotion.

3. Quality Over Quantity

If you’re planning a long-term career with Scribie, Danijela and Martin also recommend taking your time focusing on producing quality content.

Danijela:

It can get tempting to start producing quantity over quality in order to make some extra money fast, but in the long term, it really doesn’t pay off. Take the time to get familiar with the program, check for words you’re unsure about online, and make sure you’re submitting your best work.

Martin:

Do not compromise the accuracy of a file for speed, there is usually more than enough time to work on a file. Double-check the file if you have to. If you can’t catch a word or a phrase at first, listen to it again, or come back to it later once you’ve reached the end of the file.

Pro tip: Martin adds, if a word feels incorrect, it probably is. Identify that which you’ll consider background conversation because transcribing this is unnecessary and almost impossible.

4. Bookmark the “Guidelines” Page

If you’re constantly referring to the “Transcription Guidelines” page, you’re not alone. Betty shares,

I was constantly referring to the guidelines on the Scribie web page which were a big help.

Ways to Select Your File for Transcription

What are some tips and tricks for choosing a file in Scribie’s transcription portal? Check out our transcribers’ responses below.

5. Assess Your Time and Energy

Betty assesses the time she has available, her schedule for the day, energy level, and file difficulty.

I have made the mistake of underestimating the time it would take me to finish a file. After hours of work I have had to cancel a file because of other obligations. I now have a pretty good idea of what I can attempt on low energy days vs. higher energy days.

6. Sort Files by Date or Length First

When Sarah gets ready to work on files at Scribie she usually sorts and samples them by date first to check for more urgent files.

Sarah:

I try to get an idea of how long the file is and how much time I have to devote to it right then. If everything sounds good, then I select it based on that criteria. If I don’t find any of the more urgent files to be a good fit for me right then, I change the sort order to length so I can try to work on something that better fits my available time, and then repeat the process of sampling before selecting the file I’ll be working on.

Transcription Tactics

These transcription tips based on what Scribie’s transcribers have learned make the process faster and easier.

7. Google for Context

Knowing the context of a recording makes it easier. Danijela suggests that you do a quick search on Google to help identify words you don’t recognize.

Martin says,

Learn to recognize the context of a conversation and the background of the speakers, which helps identify words that sound foreign.

8. Find What Works for You

Many transcribers have their own style when working on a file. While Scribie provides you with built-in tools to make it easier, it’s important that you find a process that works for you.

Once you’ve landed on something that consistently produces good quality transcripts, which you’re comfortable with, you’re free to do your own thing!

Martin:

I understand that [the built-in editor] has many tools to help transcribers, I personally do not use most of them

In other words, you’ll want to personalize your workflow and use the right tools depending on what you’re currently comfortable with.

9. Keep at It, You’ll Get Better

Many aspiring transcriptionists struggle in the beginning. This was also the case for Danijela, Martin, Betty, and Sarah. Eventually, you’ll improve and even learn new skills.

Martin:

Now, as a QC, I know what to expect from a file just by listening to snippets of it (a feature I greatly appreciate), and can therefore pick and complete a project, even from transcription all the way to QC, without much hassle.

Danijela:

Even after working at Scribie for more than a year, I am still learning so much, whether it be new expressions, dialects, or simply an interesting new topic being discussed on the recordings.

We’re a Bunch of Friendly People

Danijela wants to urge fellow transcribers to not be afraid to ask questions, while Betty finds Scribie’s live chat feature “invaluable”. Danijela says,

Ask questions. Join the Slack community or write emails to the staff. If you’re unsure about anything, it’s much better to ask than to try and make sense of something on your own and risk making some major mistakes. Trust me, nobody will laugh at you for asking questions on Slack. I like to believe we’re a bunch of friendly people. Don’t forget, we were all rookies at one point!

She continues,

I’ve learned a lot in this year, but I love the fact that I’m still learning and that the Slack community is constantly updating us with various tips and tricks on how to become even better.

Interested in a freelance transcription job online? Join our community of Scribie pros!

Industries That Need Accurate Transcription Services

Allan CaegLeave a comment

In competitive industries, mistakes can be costly. This is true for video and audio transcription. And if you come from certain high-stakes environments, the emphasis on quality and accuracy is exponentially higher.

There have been many breakthroughs in accessibility, discoverability, AI, and speech recognition software. Having said that, despite the advancements, it’s unlikely that automation will reach Human Parity (a technical term describing how close AI is to humans in terms of performance) anytime soon.

For Scribie’s manual transcription services, we’ve developed a process for highly-accurate transcriptions and preciseness using a “Super-Human Parity” system.

Discover more about Scribie’s efficient and effective process, who automated transcription is for, and how errors in transcription can affect your industry. Learn the importance of precision, and get inspired by these examples for your transcription use cases, and beyond.

When Automated Transcription Doesn’t Cut It

Automated transcription is an option. However, not every business can take care of editing and quality assurance on their own.

Free, automated transcriptions from other providers typically produce an accuracy rate of 60-80%, resulting in 1 out of 3 incorrect words. Unlike manual transcripts, the machines can’t make corrections based on context, punctuate correctly, add paragraph breaks, or identify individual speakers. This is why you may need human discernment for accurate, error-free transcription.

Scribie developed a Four-Step Process, a strict and thorough manual transcription and QA process. This meritocratic QA system, aka super-human parity system, ensures that nothing gets through the cracks, with each subsequent step accomplished by a more skilled transcriber. As a Scribie customer, you’re guaranteed 99% accuracy or higher, speedy delivery, and more privacy.

Scribie is the only video and audio transcription service provider using the Four-Step Process. Get guaranteed accurate transcripts today!

High-stakes & competitive industries that rely on accurate transcripts

Learn about these scenarios that require the most reliable transcription services. Get inspired by how these examples demonstrate the value of professionalism.

1. Podcasters, YouTubers, and Marketers

It’s a good time for podcasters. Both Google I/O 2019 and Apple recently announced enhancements in podcast search features. Your podcast transcripts play a bigger role in Google Search.

When you come up with your own transcripts (and they’re of superior quality), you enjoy SEO benefits and rank higher on search engine results pages.

Source: NiemanLab

In addition to podcast transcription helping your discoverability and SEO, your audio transcript improves listeners’ experience and shareability. Your audience can easily find sections of your podcast and share snippets of their favorite segments. Podcast transcripts also let you add backlinks and repurpose your content into blog posts.

The same principles are true for YouTube and other forms of marketing.

In other words, if you need marketing visibility, you’ll need superior transcripts to get ahead.

2. Academics

The academic community is a high-stakes industry that requires the utmost accuracy in transcription services. As you carefully execute the scientific method to avoid compromising results, you don’t want a simple typo to ruin your entire study.

Academics use voice recordings to preserve notes, observations, and interviews for scientific papers.

The smallest typo during transcription can be disastrous. Researchers can accidentally publish the wrong findings and propagate misinformation. It can result in grave errors in future published studies, misguided applications in healthcare, engineering mishaps, and more.

Source: Gizmodo

Not to mention, typos can be expensive. NASA, for example, recently experienced the high cost of inaccurate transcription which led to a catastrophic rocket explosion.

Six Degrees shares,

“Some reports attributed the rocket failure to a misplaced decimal point, an extra semicolon or a comma that was entered in place of a period in the coded mathematical instructions that guided the steering systems on board the spacecraft.”

3. Healthcare

Precise and accurate medical transcription services is a leading priority in Healthcare.

Mistakes made during medical transcription can cost medical practices, time, energy, and money. The patient’s medical care and health is put on the line.

Crucial errors include incorrect diagnoses, demographics, terminology, dosage, lab results, operation dates, and omissions.

4. Enterprises/Businesses/Brands

Transcription errors cost businesses millions of dollars each year and compromise relationships with your clients, customers, or partners.

Pricing errors are among the most frequent mistakes in business transcription services. The wrong or missing digit and misplaced decimal point can be an expensive mistake that can be perceived as fraudulent on your part.

Your business could be at legal liability for administering or publishing inaccurate and false information.

Spelling mistakes can influence search engine optimization. One famous example cited by Six Degrees is an eBay auction listing one of the rarest bottles of beer in the world. The typo in the listing cost the brewing company $500,000. The rare beverage ended up selling for only $304 because the seller mistyped the name “Allsopp”.

When it comes to branding and marketing, transcription errors can negatively impact consumer perceptions, as Six Degrees also cites:

“ [Errors] create a lasting impression of carelessness. They can sabotage a first impression, reduce credibility, compromise brand positioning and diminish reputations. They undermine the clarity of branded messaging, create confusion, suggest poor communication skills and convey a lack of attention to detail.”

5. Legal and Government

When drafting legal language, such as contracts or depositions, it is essential to be precise in communication, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. There should be no ambiguity and room for interpretation.

Source: CNN

For instance, a professor found that the Declaration of Independence was actually inscribed with a comma. This punctuation “typo” has resulted in hundreds of years of confusion over the role of government in individual rights.

6. Mass Communication

If you’re a media professional, working in video production, filmmaking, or journalism your work can be misinterpreted by your audience. Communication is powerful and the wrong message can rile up entire communities. Imagine, the captions and translations of your work will be based on your transcripts.

You want to showcase your production with captioning and transcription that accurately reflect your intent.

Over to You

Critical transcripts should be handled by professional transcription specialists, reliable for accuracy and quality. Receive error-free transcripts in different file formats, with a 99% or higher accuracy rate.

Scribie’s video and audio transcription services include a stringent QA system by experts, which involves processing your transcript in four separate stages. Scribie’s trademark Four-Step Process ensures quality, accuracy, and privacy for any business, enterprise, or industry professional.

Get transcription services that fit your standard of excellence. Order transcripts from Scribie today!

Rev vs. Scribie: Which Transcription Service is Right for You?

Allan CaegLeave a comment

Choosing your transcription service provider can be challenging.

Undoubtedly, you have a few key considerations in mind. In this breakdown, we list and compare major pricing and features between Scribie and Rev, to help you select the best choice.

Many transcription providers aren’t upfront with all of their rates and unclear on inclusive features. Some have hidden charges, You’ll often have to hunt for all of the additional costs scattered around their webpages, making it difficult to compute your total transcription cost. On Scribie, however, you’ll be able to see the pricing, complete list of inclusive features (plus, all of the add-ons) in a single table on the pricing page. Our rates are simple and transparent.

Pricing is a considerable factor in selecting a transcription service. You’ll probably notice that Scribie’s costs are very competitive. Scribie has also fine-tuned the most thorough and efficient QA process. (Learn more about Scribie’s four-step process.)

See how else Scribie compares to Rev in key areas for your transcription needs.

Accuracy and Turnaround

Scribie is the only transcription service that uses a thorough Four-Step Process to transcribe your files. This unique formula ensures that accuracy is 99% or more. Your transcript’s quality will be vetted multiple times by different Scribie specialists.

When different transcribers work on a single file, your transcript quality is assured. Additionally, the turn-around time tends to be fast.

Scribie’s turn-around time is expected to be under 36 hours (depending on file length). Customers typically get their order within 12 hours. Short files are often delivered within the hour.

Scribie: Four-Step QA Process (1 hr – 36 hrs turnaround)

Rev: Single-step transcription process (<24 hrs turnaround)

Pricing

Transcription services usually charge a flat fee per audio minute. See the pricing structure of Rev vs. Scribie below:

Scribie: $0.80/min.

Rev: $1.00/min.

Considering Rev vs. Scribie’s price per minute, Scribie rates are lower at only $0.80/min. The lower pricing makes a big difference in transcription charges as rates add up. Rev’s transcription rates are not as upfront, making it challenging to compute total costs. You’ll have to do a bit of research to find the hidden additional costs.

Scribie provides predictable, simple and transparent pricing. All of the rates for services can easily be found and understood on Scribie’s pricing page, with no hidden charges.

Considering Scribie and Rev pricing, you might wonder, “Which service provides more?”.

Scribie offers all the same features as Rev. However, with Rev you’ll have to pay extra for some features that Scribie offers for free.

Time Coding

Time Coding is one such free feature offered by Scribie (which you’ll have to pay extra for on Rev).

Timestamps are an essential feature aligning your transcript text to the recording. They’re inserted at specific intervals to sync your captions to the video or help with post-production editing.

Scribie: Free

Rev: + $0.25/min (for timestamps every 30 seconds)

With Rev, timestamps or time-coding are an add-on service. Rev charges an extra $0.25 per minute for timestamps every 30 seconds.

Scribie, on the other hand, offers time coding for free as part of the $0.80/min transcription rate.

Speaker Tracking

Another missing feature by Rev is Speaker Tracking. Speaker tracking helps identify multiple voices in your recording and detects changes or turns in speakers.

Scribie: Identifies speakers by name

Rev: Identifies speakers as “Speaker 1, 2, etc.”

Rev only transcribes multi-speaker files by indicating “speaker 1”, “speaker 2″,”male” or “female”.

Scribie, in comparison, identifies and marks each speaker with their initials if names are provided or available. Speaker Tracking by Scribie is free.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Both Scribie and Rev require transcriptionists to sign strict NDAs for confidentiality.

Unlike Rev, however, Scribie’s Four-Step Process breaks up your files into segments. No single person views or accesses the complete contents and context of your file. This ensures that you enjoy more privacy.

Integrations

Both Scribie and Rev provide numerous integrations for fast and easy transcription.

You can upload your audio or video files from your computer, enter a publicly accessible link, or import from Dropbox, Vimeo, Google Drive, and more.

Scribie: Add captions directly to your published YouTube video from Scribie’s platform.

Rev: Add the captions yourself on the YouTube platform.

Scribie lets you directly add captions to your published YouTube video–from Scribie–without ever leaving the site. This is a great, free feature designed for YouTube creators.

Billing

Whether you anticipate ordering a high-volume of transcripts or need a single transcript for a project, Scribie is a more flexible option.

Scribie: Pay-as-you-go, billing account, team billing

Rev: Pay-as-you-go

Rev has no subscription model for payments and charges for every order.

Scribie lets you pay-as-you-go and offers a subscription model for recurring customers. You can set up a billing account and add funds to your account, share them with your team members, and more.

What Scribie Customers Say

The transcripts are very accurate. I like the pricing options based on turnaround time and the ability to track progress prior to completion. They have always met their deadlines. – Charles Senteio, University of Michigan School of Information

Customer service is excellent. The support team has communicated very promptly whenever I have had questions. Your staff graciously compiled individual transcriptions into a single document for me. I have already recommended Scribie to other members of an e-learning community. Thank you very much for offering high quality transcription at a very reasonable price.
– Derek Frankhouser, Manhattan Prep

Over to You

With Scribie’s Four-Step Transcription Process, we are the most thorough, accurate, and discreet transcription service provider. Scribie offers the lowest transcription prices, giving you more for less, with all the essential features (and more) for your transcription service needs.

Whether you’re a one-time customer or a company needing a steady stream of high-quality transcription services, choose Scribie as a reliable transcription and closed captioning service provider.

In need of a transcript? Try Scribie: upload your audio/video file

4 Ways Modern Filmmakers Use Transcripts to Create Successful Productions

Allan CaegLeave a comment
4 Ways Modern Filmmakers Use Transcripts to Create Successful Productions

For all filmmakers, videographers, and video enthusiasts, it’s the perfect time to reach more people with your artistic vision, discipline, and love for the craft.

The viewing habits of your audiences are changing, along with greater demands for accessibility and compelling storytelling. Videos are moving beyond theaters and TVs and are being consumed in all kinds of environments and on different devices. Captions are now becoming a requirement and indicator of good, quality production.

It’s unsurprising that video streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, Ustream, and others are gaining popularity as one of the fastest growing industries. That includes the recently announced and highly-anticipated Disney Plus.

Many pop culture references even describe this generation’s competitive workforce as made up of any of these three words: Coffee, Netflix, (and also, tears).

As you make it easier for viewers to enjoy and consume your films, they may not realize that before a movie is created, it has to go under 3 basic process – pre-production, production, post-production. They only see the final product, which is the movie.

If we review your process, pre-production involves all the planning from the script, auditions, scouting of locations, and others. Production is when the actual shooting happens. While the most important and longest process is post-production.

Depending on the scale and budget, your film or movie production time can vary from days to years!

Regardless of how small or big a production company is, you can make the life of your post-production team, especially your videographers, easier with the use of post-production transcripts.

These essential transcripts speed up video editing and captioning. Find out how you can maximize the use of transcripts for video production and distribution, as well as useful resources for choosing the right transcription and captioning provider.

What is a post-production transcript?

Post-production transcription is a word-for-word, shot-by-shot, minute-by-minute account of a film, video or documentary – and it’s 100% accurate. Transcription is usually outsourced. Some big scale production companies delegate this task to in-house teams, but due to lack of experience, the quality of work is often affected.

One reason many video producers use transcripts is so that referencing lines or sections from the script becomes easier through written timecodes and timestamps.

Note: To save time and money, you may schedule transcription work after production. Why? Imagine you’re in the middle of production. Big, impromptu script changes were made, and a chunk of dialogue gets deleted. Your original script practically becomes irrelevant in post-production, and a post-production transcript, a lifesaver.

Why Videographers/Film Directors Use Video Transcripts

What are the benefits of a video transcript?

If you’ve seen the 2015 version of Mad Max: Fury Road, it’s surprising that this 120-minute film had up to 480 hours of raw footage! (You’ve probably had your share of drowning in raw footage.)

In this case, the video editor had to condense unedited material into a 120-minute feature film.

Source: VashiVisuals

Working on a film without a transcript to guide your video editing ups the difficulty level past ‘Normal’ and ‘Hard’, to ‘Harder than Hard’.

If you haven’t considered prioritizing transcripts to simplify the post-production process, here are a few benefits:

#1: Translate your film to a different language with ease.

Did you know that English is only the 3rd top language in the world? There is a high likelihood that your work will undergo translation for distribution and accessibility to a wider, international audience. In other parts of the world, they may speak Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic as their first language.

A transcript helps your translator quickly and efficiently finalize the translation.

#2: Use timecodes and timestamps to save time.

A timecode (alternatively, time code) is a sequence of numeric codes generated at regular intervals by a timing synchronization system. Timecode is used in video production, show control and other application which require temporal coordination or logging of recording or actions.

Timecodes are used as reference points for video editing. Your editors can work more efficiently with the use of transcriptions, especially if it has timestamps synchronized with the timecodes in the original video.

Through transcription, it saves your editor time from switching between viewing and editing footage.

#3: Skip ahead for revisions.

You don’t have to watch and rewatch scenes to find parts for revision.

Save valuable time and effort looking for the sections that need editing. A transcript on hand allows you to browse through timecodes and dialogue to see exactly when and where you need to skip ahead to perform the needed edits.

It’s also easier to make creative decisions seeing the entire work in text.

#4: Use video transcripts to add captions.

Nowadays, captions and subtitles are a must. They’re pretty much a prerequisite for video streaming sites and determine your video’s success when sharing on most platforms.

Here’s why captions matter.

“When it comes to watch time, subtitled videos increase view time by more than 12% and are watched an average 91% to completion. In comparison, videos without subtitles are only watched 66% to completion. When subtitles are included, 80% more people watch videos to completion.”

You can request closed captioning services from an established transcription company. With a good transcript in a compatible file format, you can add captions in as little as one step by directly uploading them to your platform. Just see how simple it is to caption videos for any social platform.

What are your options?

Now that you’ve learned the benefits of transcription for your post-production team, you can consider the following options for transcription.

DIY your transcripts.

If your crew has spare time and is confident in their transcription skills, you might consider doing this in-house.

However, this method can be tedious and time-consuming. Most likely, expect DIY transcription to take a long time and the context switching can be quite taxing. You’d rather focus on your core duties.

Depending on the size and expertise of your crew (and if your video transcription needs are low-volume), this is a good option.

Seek to get help if your hours of footage make DIY efforts cumbersome.

Use automated transcription.

Compared to DIY transcripts, using a video/audio software can aid in your transcriptions. Plus, it’s more cost-efficient than ordering text from a professional service.

However, there is a downside. Speech-to-text (STT) software accuracy can be unreliable, and often the output won’t make sense. In the end, you’ll most likely still have to manually correct and edit many errors.

Hire video transcription services.

As in the previously mentioned options, you can create your own online video transcript or use STT software to save money. However, take note that transcription takes time, while software accuracy is unreliable.

There is a fast, low-cost, and easy way to order accurate transcripts online for every video you produce. The process for ordering transcripts from video transcription services is quite seamless, too. With a few clicks on transcription sites, like Scribie, and a few hours after, you get your transcript.

Professional transcriptionists and QA teams with in-depth experience offer you accurate and reliable transcriptioning and closed captioning services.

Over To You

Video transcription can provide unbelievable convenience and value for saving your time and money when producing videos.

If you’re swamped and lack the time or people to transcribe for you, a smart choice is delegating this task to a professional or transcription service. Here are some key considerations for selecting the right service for your filmmaking needs.

Ordering a transcript online is a helpful hack for accurate documentation of your footage. You can use transcripts as a reference during editing and for quickly adding captions to your videos.

Looking for a video transcript now? Contact us and let us do the transcription for you.

How to Select the Best Video Captioning Service: 5 Key Considerations

Allan CaegLeave a comment
5 Things to Consider for Selecting the Best Video Captioning Service

If you’re a video producer, you know how captions can improve your reach and accessibility.

Finding a good closed captioning service to become your production partner, whether in the long run or for a one-time order, needs careful consideration. You may have some top picks in mind. Before you decide, though, see if they’re the right choice for you and your audience.

Wondering about the most important things to look for in closed captioning services? Here are the 5 major things to consider, such as pricing, delivery time, quality, and more. Make sure that you’ve covered everything on the list.

Transparent Pricing

One of the first things you’ll consider is captioning cost. Rates by closed captioning services are typically calculated by audio minute, and different providers charge different rates depending on the packages and add-ons.

Captioning services will usually offer low base rates, but be careful of hidden costs, like service add-ons which usually incur additional charges on top of the regular rate. These can add up to a hefty dent in your wallet.

For example, TranscribeMe’s advertised rate begins at $.79/minute. However, if you need a transcription of technical content with speaker tracking, your rate goes up to $1.50/minute. Some companies charge more depending on your industry, the no. of speakers tracked, and speed of delivery.

Scribie’s Pricing

Our pricing is transparent and simple. We charge $0.80/minute, the lowest base rate in the industry that is most inclusive of features. When you order captions from Scribie, you receive more for less. This is the rate you pay no matter the file format, how many speakers need tracking, or whether your industry includes highly technical terms.

What you see is what you get.

Take note: Turn-around time is typically faster than 36 hours (depending on file length). Expect your order within 12 hours. Short files are often delivered within the hour.

Scribie’s completed transcript and captions are provided in multiple file formats for your uploading needs, such as VTT, SRT, PDF, MS Word, and more. You’ll find the right, compatible file format to upload or add your captions to videos on any platform. You can also use our easy captions editor to perform any edits beforehand.

Get your video captions as soon as within the hour. Order from Scribie today.

Integrations

Choosing a closed captioning service that allows integration to your platform saves you plenty of time and effort.

Integrations let you automate your captioning workflow. An integration helps simplify the importing and uploading process.

Scribie’s Integrations

Scribie lets you import your videos for captioning through a variety of ways, whichever is most convenient for you.

If adding captions to YouTube, our Youtube integration lets you directly upload your captions from our site.

Simply enter your YouTube link or upload a video file, order captions from Scribie, and save to YouTube once your captions are ready.

You can also easily import your video from Vimeo, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, or other publicly accessible links.

Quality Assurance

What level of accuracy can you expect from the closed captioning service?

Automatic captions by software, as you may have experienced, can turn out wildly inaccurate. Manual captioning services by people are your best bet for highly accurate transcriptions. Many closed captioning services provide automatic closed captions (ACC) by software or don’t have a quality assurance process in place.

Scribie’s Accuracy

Our team of specialists offer captions with an accuracy of 99% or higher. We also have an in-house team of quality assurance experts and proofreaders.

Through Scribie’s signature four-step process, you’re assured quality and privacy.

Here’s how it works: Different transcribers work on different sections of your video, and Scribie proofreaders vet your captions’ quality multiple times. Our in-house QA experts analyze your file for accuracy, and then the accuracy of names, acronyms, and other potential errors are verified and fixed at every step.

Speed of Delivery

How fast will you receive your captions? Some closed captioning services charge extra for quick delivery and others can take as long as a week.

If you need your captions within the day, you may have to shell out an extra handful of dollars per minute of audio. Make sure that the provider you choose will be able to deliver your files within your required time.

Scribie’s Turnaround

Scribie delivers your file in as fast as an hour, and we don’t charge for rush delivery. Depending on file length, you can expect your order within 12 hours.

Customer Service

If you’re looking for a captioning partner for your videos, you’ll want a provider that’s communicative and available to address any of your concerns. Many providers offer impersonal services.

Will they be prompt in answering questions? Can they fulfill any custom requests? If you need a custom format or have any specific requests, they should be able to handle the fulfillment of your needed specifications.

Scribie’s Support

We’re flexible enough and care about your needs to personally accommodate requests. Our customer service is available the entire week to provide customer service, with live chat on weekdays and email support during weekends.

Over to You

Everyone has different needs when it comes to closed captioning services, and there are plenty of options to choose from. It helps to list down your needs and expectations beforehand and determine whether you chose the best closed captioning service for you. Watch out for any hidden fees and charges that are bloated with unessential features.

If you’re a video producer, podcaster, YouTuber, or social media influencer, we’ve designed Scribie to be the ideal choice for most of your captioning needs. Our simplified and transparent rates are among the lowest and most inclusive of essential features.

Ready to try Scribie? See why Scribie is the ideal closed captioning partner. Order your video captions now.

A Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Transcript Fast

Allan Caeg2 Comments
A Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Transcript Fast

So, you’re supposed to transcribe an audio or video file.

Your work may need you to do a steady stream of transcriptions, or you’ve never transcribed a word in your life.

Best practices and guidelines ensure that transcripts adhere to industry standards. How do you keep your transcripts high quality with minimal effort? It helps to establish a process for things to stay organized and smooth.

If you happen to be a seasoned transcriber, there may be transcription tips and tricks that you haven’t considered before. Can you improve your current transcription process?

We’ve created this checklist covering all the essential bases to optimize the transcription process, from start to finish. Check out the necessary steps to get you on your way to completing that transcription task efficiently.

Step 1. Prepare Your Tools and Equipment

Make sure you’ve prepared all the necessary tools and equipment before you begin to transcribe.

A comfortable or ergonomic chair creates a huge difference in keeping your body relaxed during hours of transcription work. It supports your lower back, promotes good posture, and ensures proper blood circulation. Adjust the seat to your preferred position.

Use good quality, noise-canceling headphones. Over-ear headsets are the most comfortable as they encase your entire ear and isolate distracting noise. Human voice frequencies lie between 250 Hz and 2000 Hz, the midrange of sound. We recommend headphones that have a pronounced yet smooth midrange.

Keep your essential every day carry items close. Eyeglasses, a bottle of water, a cup of coffee, or mobile phone should have already been placed on your desk to reduce distractions while doing transcription work.

An online reference such as soft copies of a dictionary or Google helps you quickly search for unfamiliar terms and the context to its meaning.

A foot pedal lets you control dictation playback with your toes. You can play, rewind, and fast forward by tapping sections of the pedal with your foot. You can setup your foot pedal to work with Scribie’s transcription software.

Step 2. Find a Good Transcription Software

There are web-based transcription tools that let you upload and transcribe your entire recordings online. These are your best friends in getting transcripts done–fast.

Scribie’s all-in-one transcription software has built-in tools and shortcuts to make everything easier from start to finish. You can even automatically transcribe your file to cut down time spent on transcription.

Basically, you can transcribe on Scribie in three simple steps:

  1. Upload your file.
  2. Scribie transcribes automatically.
  3. Check and edit the transcript.

Step 3. Amplify Volume and Increase the Audio Quality

Not all recordings are made equal. If you have a difficult file with plenty of background noise, there are ways you can increase its audio quality.

Scribie has a built-in dynamic range compressor that automatically increases the audio quality of your file for transcription. It reduces the volume of unnecessary loud sounds and amplifies sections that are difficult to hear. As we’ve been mastering transcription for about a decade, we continuously optimize tools like these.

Step 4. Familiarize Yourself with the Tools

Make the most out of your transcription software. Buckle up for your transcription journey by getting to know your tools.

Scribie has a timestamped audio player and fully-featured integrated text editor–everything you need for transcription. There are built-in tools, keyboard shortcuts, and a control panel that you can customize to fit your work process.

Scribie’s tools and shortcuts:

The word expander saves time by predicting and expanding the word you’re typing. Frequently used words allow an overview of what words to expect in your recording. This saves you from guessing a vague term.

Spellcheck provides you with suggestions to autocorrect any potential spelling mistakes.

Slow down or speed up audio to catch every word.

Use keyboard shortcuts to pause, skip, forward, or rewind to a certain time in the recording.

Identify mistakes with a blue underline through Scribie’s AI tool.

For recordings with heavy accents, you can dictate and transcribe the file using our voice recognition software.

If you happen to have little idea of your recording’s content, you have the option to automatically transcribe your file. This gives you a nice overview of what to expect and speeds up transcription.

Step 5. During Transcription

Here’s a pro tip: Many transcribers put speech to text by matching the transcript and audio word-for-word. We actually recommend against that. Instead, listen to the entire conversation and use context to interpret and identify the correct words.

During transcription, you may come across unfamiliar content such as technical or medical terms. Do a Google search for context or install soft copies of an online dictionary for a quick definition.

Don’t get hung up on a difficult word, though. There may be certain terms or words that are difficult to catch where you end up pausing and rewinding multiple times. Skip them. Leave a blank in the meantime and get back to those words you missed later to avoid breaking your flow.

Avoid context switching and juggling different tasks at the same time. Alternating between transcribing and editing becomes tiresome. Instead, do one thing at a time.

Begin the task by putting on your transcription hat and focusing on the transcription task ahead. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Once you’ve completely transcribed the entire recording, whether manually or automatically, you can pivot your attention to editing and refining the transcript.

Step 6. Edit the Transcript

Re-play the audio, go over your draft, and zoom in on the ff:

  • Areas left blank or missed
  • Misheard words, terms, or expressions
  • Misspelled words
  • Punctuation
  • Formatting

Use Scribie’s spellcheck and AI tool to identify any misspellings or mistakes that may have slipped through.

Over to You

Transcription work can be rewarding for those with an eye for detail and quality content.

Breaking the transcription process down into step-by-step increments makes long hours seem easy and do-able. While a great transcription software saves time and effort.

We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to make transcription as easy as possible for our transcribers.

Scribie offers online transcription jobs for beginners and seasoned professionals. Learn more about how you can join Scribie as a freelancer.