Transcription is the conversion of audio or video files to text by professional transcriptionists. English is the world’s third most popular language, so it only makes sense that English transcription services are in very high demand. Close behind English transcription services in demand are Spanish and French transcription services.
There are a number of different types of English transcription. The three types that are in the greatest demand are medical, legal and general transcription. Included within general transcription are a number of more specific types. Some of these types include transcription for interviews, focus groups, academic conferences, business conferences, sermons, videos and podcasts.
People hire English transcription specialists for all types of reasons, but the following reasons can generally be broken down into four primary categories:
Improved Analysis of Content
To properly analyze a conversation, such as a focus group conversation, it’s important to view a printed transcript, as you can do so at your own pace and, for the technically-inclined, you can even utilize software packages that can analyze text transcripts (programs like this can tell you how often certain phrases are used, whether or not people opted for complex language instead of simplistic language — which can be an indication that they’re hiding something, etc.).
Record Keeping
Transcribing files not only serves as a backup, but it also makes those files searchable. This offers huge benefits to businesses that produce large volumes of digital audio and video content. Take television shows, for example. When shows want to refer to clips from earlier seasons, those making the show do not watch every past episode. Instead, they simply perform a keyword search on transcripts of old shows. This saves them huge amounts of time.
Accessibility
A lot of audio and video content does not come with captions. This means that it is largely – if not entirely — inaccessible to people who are hard-of-hearing. In order to make content more accessible, people often hire an English transcription service.
Search Engine Optimization
Very similar to how English transcription makes audio and video content more accessible to people who are hard-of-hearing, English transcription services make audio content accessible to search engines. As it stands, search engines do a terrible job understanding what is in a video or audio clip. They do a remarkable job of understanding what is contained in written text (i.e. a transcript), though. By having audio and video files transcribed and posting those transcriptions online, one can drive a great deal of highly targeted traffic from search engines to one’s website.
When hiring an English transcription company, it’s important to consider the number of years of experience their transcriptionists have, as well as their reputation for accuracy, speed and customer service. Additionally, at no point should you hire a transcription company that offers “automated transcription,” as the accuracy from automation will never compare to the accuracy from trained, tested full-time transcriptionists.
