Select Page

Intelligent transcription – how it can help with your audio and video content

by | Nov 29, 2017 | blogging, communication, content marketing, information products, intelligent transcription

Intelligent transcription – what’s that again??

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post. Good intentions have come and gone, so it’s time to go back to basics and ask you a quick question.

What are you struggling with right now, with regards to your content? How can intelligent transcription help with your content? What the bloomin’ heck is intelligent transcription anyway??!!

A quick recap of intelligent transcription

There’s that word again, intelligent!

I’ve come to realise that despite me thinking everybody must surely know what it is I do, and what is involved, this is not the case.

I was chatting to one of the other attendees at my regular networking meeting this week, someone I’ve now known for quite a few months, and it transpires he wasn’t exactly sure what my work involves.

I had mentioned taking the ums and ers out of the spoken word (meaning I was transcribing what someone was saying, and leaving the mumbles and stutters out whilst typing), and he thought it meant I literally took the ums and ers out of the recording!

Not sure that my technical ability is quite up to that!

So here’s a very quick recap to get you up to speed…

My business is all about transcription. At its most basic level, I listen to audio and video recordings through my headphones and I type what’s said. I have special transcription software that works in conjunction with a foot pedal, so I can play, pause, rewind and fast forward using my foot!

What sort of audio and video recordings can be transcribed?

  • Straightforward one person dictation e.g. letters and reports.
  • Interviews.
  • Focus groups.
  • Meetings.
  • Conferences.
  • Workshops.
  • Webinars.
  • Course content in the form of videos or audio recordings.
  • Facebook Live recordings.
  • YouTube videos.
  • Podcasts.

Have I missed anything?

What’s the intelligent bit?

In some cases, for example police interviews, a verbatim transcript is usually required. This will include absolutely everything that’s said in the recording, including ums, ers, where the interviewer says yeah, or mm-hmm, background noises, coughing…absolutely everything.

Intelligent transcription takes away anything unnecessary. What you get is a transcript of what was said, but missing out things like ums, ers, unnecessary repetitions, interjections and so on, so the text makes absolute sense.

I suppose the exception would be for straight dictation, but the content of a letter or a report usually needs to be word for word, and if it’s one person speaking, you can usually use a bit of common sense to leave out the odd ‘um’ during the transcribing process!

How can this help you?

I’ll give one example of a client I had a couple of years ago. She had put together an online course, and most of the content was available to access in the form of videos, which were also provided as mp3 audio recordings, so those participating in the course could listen on the go.

However, she was aware that learning styles differ and some people prefer to read their content, rather than watch or listen. It was my job to transcribe the videos, and the transcripts were provided along with the video and audio recordings, thus making the content fully accessible.

So that’s just for starters.

What are you currently struggling with? Could intelligent transcription help you make your content more accessible? Or perhaps you’re a one person business doing letters and reports and you need help on an adhoc basis, but don’t want to hire someone full time, might this service help you?

I’d love to hear what you think, so please either comment below, or pop over to my Facebook page and leave me a message.