The best way to have affordable cheap transcription is to transcribe your interviews yourself.
But let’s be honest, audio or video transcription can be a tedious, time consuming task even for the best of us.
Unless you’re an alien with 20 fingers on each hand.
When you see the words “affordable cheap transcription” on a website, it may not always be what it looks like.
This unbiased, complete, in-depth guide will give you the facts along with actionable tips and tricks to save time and money and get affordable cheap transcription every time.
1. Automated Speech to Text
The above image may not be an accurate representation of machine transcription.
(It’s not robots transcribing your research interviews on fertilizers, guys, come on…)
Automated speech to text is sometimes also known as:
- Automatic Speech Recognition
- Voice Recognition
- Speech Recognition Software
- Transcription Software
They are more often than not alluding to the same thing.
An AI listens to your audio or video files and types it into a document.
And since it’s not a human typing away on a keyboard, it can transcribe at the speed of light, for pennies.
Those AI bastards!
Perfect, I’ll get Automatic Transcription then!
Not so fast.
Have you ever tried talking to Siri or Alexa or Cortana or Google Now in a crowded room?
Or in a crowded area with screaming kids and barking dogs in the background?
While voice recognition AI has improved a lot in the past few years, you need to plan ahead to get the best results.
For example, as long as you’re a single speaker talking at a slow pace (like putting a baby to sleep with a lullaby), it will do fine.
The moment you introduce more speakers and background noise, the accuracy will go down.
It gets worse if your recorded audio has fast talkers with overlapping conversation and background noise.
So, is it really Affordable Cheap Transcription?
Yes and no.
We provide both automated speech to text and human transcription services, and have done the cost analysis.
Speech to text accuracy rates are somewhere between 60% to 80% depending on the audio quality.
Again, we must reiterate, it requires pristine audio quality.
You can choose one of your interviews with the best sound quality, have it transcribed automatically or get a free trial.
And depending on the accuracy you get, decide if you want to go the machine or human transcription route for the rest of your project.
2. Transcribe it Yourself
DIY or do-it-yourself, much like other fields, is often the best way to get affordable cheap transcription.
However, you are trading time for money.
How long does it take to transcribe a file?
- 1 hour audio/video file (without transcription hardware) = 10-12 hours
- 1 hour audio/video file (with transcription hardware) = 6-8 hours
If you’re a team, you can split the project or even each interview into smaller chunks and get the work done faster.
Multiple speakers, background noise, overlapping conversation, technical audio problems etc. can add more time.
How to Transcribe an Interview
We’ve done in-depth complete guides on:
Those will help you go from a beginner to an expert transcriber in no time.
Time vs Money
If you’re not accustomed to transcribing interviews yourself, it may take you much, much longer compared to someone who transcribes on a daily basis.
Practice makes perfect.
In which case, it’s probably a better idea to focus your time on things you are good at, and leave the heavy lifting of transcription to people who do this on a daily basis.
A lot of transcription services offer bulk discounts, so it’s worth checking that with them to get affordable cheap transcription.
3. Outsourced Affordable Cheap Transcription
Over the years, the term “outsourcing” has had negative stigma associated to it due to fear-mongering politics.
But how bad is it really?
Everything you use on a daily basis in 2020 is outsourced in a way.
We are based in the United Kingdom, and apart from food products I don’t see anything else that’s manufactured in the country anymore.
As we’ve discussed earlier, it’s a compromise of time vs money.
Furthermore, Tim Ferriss‘ award winning book The 4-Hour Workweek shows you how outsourcing your tedious, time consuming work saves a massive amount of time, which translates into saved money.
And affordable cheap transcription can be achieved by outsourcing it.
Always check and ask for verified reviews, and if they’re good, there’s really no difference.
Your valuable time can then be spent on doing things that are more important and move you closer toward your goals.
There are only 24 hours in a day.
What about Privacy, Security and Confidentiality?
You can ask for legal NDAs or confidentiality agreement from your provider.
For this reason it is probably safer to go with a transcription company than an individual freelancer.
Mainly because a company will follow best practices around data confidentiality by default.
4. Record in a Quiet Place
If you’ve already recorded your audio, then this doesn’t apply to you, but it’s something to keep in mind for the future.
Especially if you’re looking for affordable cheap transcription.
Bad quality audio will add substantial time to transcription, and it can often take twice as long.
Furthermore, by taking certain precautions beforehand you can make your interviews easier for automated speech recognition software.
Due to COVID, a lot of interviews are now done over the phone or online.
The following guides can help:
- How to Record an Interview From Home in 2020 (Definitive Guide)
- How to Record Audio for Best Sound Quality
Try and find a quiet corner before you hit record.
Stay away from noise if possible.
Keep the microphone closest to the interviewee and not the interviewer, or in the middle for best results.
You could save a ton of your precious time and hard earned money on transcription costs with a few tweaks at the recording stage.
5. Ask the Participants to Enunciate
A small request to the participants in your interview which can have a massive effect on the outcome as far as affordable cheap transcription goes.
It also helps if you’re able to control the flow of the interview.
For example, on top of asking the participants to talk slowly and enunciate, you could also ask them to wait for their turn and avoid talking over each other.
Background Noise + Fast, Mumbling Speakers = Wasted Time and Money
If your project is massive and spans hundreds of hours, every minute saved can translate into saving thousands of dollars!
6. Place your Microphone in the Center
If you’re the interviewer, and you keep the microphone close to yourself, you’re making a mistake.
Especially if your guest is doing the bulk of the talking.
The poor transcriber then has to hear you chewing, breathing and typing (taking notes) while they’re desperately trying to figure out what your guest is talking about.
If you’re recording a one-on-one interview, it’s best to put the microphone closest to the interviewee/participant.
Or if you’re recording a phone interview, put your recorder closest to the audio source.
You have your list of questions prepared beforehand anyway, so your talking part is not that important.
Plus, you can give the list of questions to the transcription service you’ve hired to make sure the questions are transcribed accurately too.
Placement of the microphone is the tweak that often makes the biggest difference between affordable cheap transcription, and expensive, time consuming transcription.
7. Invest in a Digital Recorder or Smartphone App
If you’re going to be doing this often, it makes sense to invest in a high quality smartphone app or digital recorder purpose built for recording crystal clear audio files.
The latest smartphones these days come equipped with high quality microphones, even two microphones at the top and bottom which is perfect for recording interviews for affordable cheap transcription.
Smartphones and tablets these days also have loads of storage space.
You can also attach microphones to smartphones via a micro-USB or USB Type C port for greater fidelity and clarity.
The following articles may help:
8. Communicate Your Needs Clearly to the Transcription Service
Once the initial price and turnaround time negotiations are agreed upon, please make sure you provide all relevant information, and possibly a glossary of terms document with everything related to your project.
Or point them to a portal or a website where the topic of your project can be researched.
This not only speeds up things, but also helps you get affordable cheap transcription.
Also communicate your project deadline clearly.
9. Read the Terms & Conditions Carefully
A lot of transcription services will charge you a lot of money and only provide you with a transcribed document that is not proofread for accuracy.
A lot of clients that have given us 5-star reviews have told us how shocked they were finding ridiculous errors in transcripts from big brand companies.
And that they had to edit those themselves, which added significant time to their research project.
Fortunately, our transcription process is three tiered.
Every audio file gets transcribed, proofread, and then reviewed by an experienced quality analyst to maintain accuracy levels of 99% consistently.
That saves your time, money and ensures you get affordable cheap transcription.
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