A Guide to Online Transcription
Online transcription companies allow people to send in audio files and have them converted into scannable, searchable, digital text.
For attorneys trying to work through long depositions, journalists who just recorded an hour-long interview, or medical professionals wanting to review audio notes they took during a surgery, transcription services allow them to get more done.
Audio files are great for capturing, but tough to review.
Converting audio files to text allows these professionals something they can scan easily, search, share ... or just grab the most important parts without having to fast-forward through many minutes of audio.
A Human Touch
Speech-to-text software powers Siri on your iPhone, and a lot of cable companies are now building speech recognition right into your television remote.
But as anyone who has struggled to get Siri to understand what you're saying knows, the software is by no means perfect.
Human voices have different inflections.
Even among people speaking the same language, a word may have several pronunciations or variations based on regional accents, age, gender, and more.
Native speakers tend to be able to pick up on these differences easily, almost without thinking about it.
We understand context and can work out what someone is trying to say, even if they say a word slightly differently than we do.
Machines, on the other hand, struggle with this.
For example: Some people might pronounce the word “pen” as “pin.”
You would be able to understand that from context, or from knowing that certain accents pronounce that word differently.
A machine, on the other hand, would just hear “pin” and would struggle to render it accurately.
This all just shows why people are still necessary for transcription.
Not to mention humans have a really strong ability to filter out background noise, especially in audio files that aren't high quality, something that machines will also struggle with.
Basically, software is getting better, but people are still needed to transcribe.
How Online Transcription Companies Pay
So yes, people are needed for transcription.
But how does it pay?
Transcription companies almost all pay by the audio hour or the audio minute, which is different than the real world hour or minute.
No matter what you're doing in that hour, transcription companies pay for the amount of audio that you are able to cleanly transcribe.
So say you get a six-minute audio file to transcribe.
If that takes you 15 minutes to get it done, or an hour and 15 minutes, it doesn't matter — your pay will be the same.
Thus, the goal of every transcriptionist is to get as quick as possible.
What's nice about the work is that it often allows for a flexible schedule.
You are usually given a few days to complete your assignments depending on the company.
Prices can be multiplied if the project has a fast turnaround time, however.
And sometimes, if the file has extremely poor audio quality, you can earn a bit more by working through the crummy audio and figuring out exactly what is being said.
