Problems of instant audio transcription to text

instant audio transcription to text
By March 9th, 2021 | solutions | 0 Comments

There are many instances in which transcribing audio to text is necessary. Transcription is a very useful process to turn a recorded interview, a speech or masterclass to text. It is also used to register what happened in a meeting, trial or individual or group therapy session.

As the demand for this service increases, there are more automatic tools that transcribe the audio we are interested in instantly.

In fact, nowadays, there is a wide range of automatic transcription apps that despite helping us transcribe an informal or personal audio, they are not totally reliable or accurate for professional use.

Revising is always essential

If due to immediacy or urgency you are forced to use automated transcription for professional use, it is essential to count on a specialist that revises it to correct grammatical and spelling errors, as well as to guarantee coherence and consistency of the text to avoid lack of sense.

Automated transcription is unfit if you need it to be literal

Do you know the difference between a literal transcription and natural transcription? The first works on the complete recording, including oral language expressions, such as interjections, stammering, or different intonation given to each sentence. It is often used in trials and statements in which the speaker’s attitude is also important.

Natural transcription eliminates these oral aspects and gathers information respecting the meaning and sense of the message. It is the most used in scientific research and documents due to readability and coherence.

In this sense, we can dismiss automated translation as it is not capable of translating literally, which will completely depend on a human transcriber.

If there are several speakers, algorithms mix up

When transcribing a conversation with more than one speaker, it is very possible automated transcription engines won't distinguish among them correctly and mix up the text.

In a natural conversation, there are times in which different speakers interrupt each other, however, automated transcription does not narrow each speaker down because it does not distinguish the different voices.

Watch out for audio file quality

Automated transcription can give you a good result if you have good audio quality and there’s only one speaker with a flat accent. It gets more complicated if the speaker talks too fast or has a very strong accent.

When there’s poor sound quality or noise in the background, it is very probable the machine won’t recognize some words and the result will be senseless or incomplete.

In which cases is it advisable to hire professional transcription services?

As you can see, instant transcription has some limitations and problems that make it advisable to hire a professional transcription service as the one offered by Linguaserve..

Contact us if you need:

  • Written proof for legal purposes.
  • A record of corporate meetings and minutes.
  • Work with individual or group interviews.
  • Access specific parts of a recording.

Now that you now a little bit more about audio transcription to text, think about whether instant translation is what you need or if you prefer the services of a multilingual company specialized in transcribing that will guarantee efficiency and quality.