Automated transcription
If you need to reduce time frames to meet strict scheduling, you can use automated transcription. For certain categories of people and professionals, the management of urgent tasks becomes more agile when aided by automated systems. The range of AI (Artificial Intelligence) solutions by CMT makes it possible to flank the excellent performance of real-time transcription with even more immediate services, to meet the needs of those who urgently have to convert audio and video to text.
Automatic transcription
Automatic transcription (or machine transcription) is an IT solution that transforms an audio or video file into written text. This automated service boasts quick turnarounds and streamlined workflows, which makes it incredibly competitive in terms of budget constraints.
CMT’s automated transcription focuses on quality output. Reliability is achieved thanks to the clever mix of an extremely powerful source audio transcription engine, aided by machine learning and the use of personalised glossaries. Over 30 languages are available and the various support services for automatic transcription include speaker identification (the ability to distinguish between different speakers), which plays an essential role.
How does it differ from real-time or deferred professional transcription? The automated transcription system imitates the task performed by sector professionals (transcribers), but to ensure an optimal result and a faithful reproduction, the audio to be transcribed must not contain any external interference and the recording must be high quality. This means good input volume of microphones, clean voices, articulated speech (not sped up), a clear tone and no speaking over other people. Essentially, the better the source audio, the better the end result.
Automated transcription: light post-editing and heavy post-editing
Converting audio or video quickly makes organisation easier and simplifies the understanding and archiving of information and data. It is therefore extremely beneficial for tasks or studies where it is not essential to have a verbatim (word for word) transcription to hand.
In other circumstances, however, we need a more rigorous transcription service. At this point, customers can request an additional post-editing service, which will make the transcription more accurate and complete. The correction of the written text by the reviewer can be light or heavy post-editing, based on the level of perfection required for the automated transcription.
Custom dictionaries
To improve the recognition of uncommon words during automatic transcription, the CMT professionals can manually insert a personalised list of technical terms at the customer’s request – thus creating a custom dictionary of hundreds of words, acronyms, sayings or entire sentences, leading the automatic transcription engine to greater comprehension.
Automatic transcription: who is this service for?
Automatic transcriptions are an excellent solution for those who need to act immediately in their work or education environment. Actions such as the transcription of a recording take too long when we need to carry out a task quickly. For instance, think of a journalist who needs to listen back to, transcribe and write up an interview or a student who wants to convert a lecture to text, before summarising it. This takes time, energy and concentration away from the main task, such as submitting an article or preparing for an exam.
A service like automatic transcription is most effective when we require a draft to grasp basic concepts, an outline to follow for subsequent development or a summary to refine our understanding of a presentation. Or, at the eleventh hour, when we need a synopsis or written version of a meeting, conference, AGM or other type of business event.
Video and audio synced transcription
With an audio or video script, we may need to listen back to (or rewatch in the case of video) the point when a concept was expressed to check its accuracy or even just to experience it again. CMT can embed the audio or video in question into a web page, either on its own site or the customer’s web space, so that the transcription can be consulted easily. The transcription is synced in time with the video or audio.
Placing your cursor over a specific point in the reproduction (of the audio or video), sends you to the corresponding point of the script. Likewise, by selecting a word in the script, it is possible to proceed automatically to the corresponding part of the audio or video. The transcription is shown at the same pace as the video.
