Is Voice Recognition Software a Cost-effective Tool for Radio Transcription?
Voice Recognition Software (VRS) systems have improved steadily over the past two decades, but are probably not yet sophisticated enough to be a cost-effective transcription solution. If you are trying to determine whether using such systems would save on transcription service costs, consider the following points:
- Time Factor: Time is money and, at least today, text-to-speech programs seem to take time away from the professional. VRS is not very sensitive to changing speech patterns, different accents, and does not recognize many words and names. Using it entails spending time continually ‘retraining’ the program.
- Clarity of Recording: Non-verbal noises that commonly exist in the dictation process and in multiple-voice scenarios (conference transcription and multiple speaker interview transcription, for example) seriously affect the functioning of VRS.
- Linguistic Factor: Very few people speak the way they write. VRS will type what you say – and the language will appear unstructured. This is where the difference between human transcriptionists and VRS is most evident. Using VRS not only means training yourself to speak in written English form, it may also mean spending more time to insert material into an existing recording.
- Formatting: Part of a professional transcriptionist’s work is to format the final transcript according to your specifications. Using VRS means that you (or your staff) will have to spend more time on word processing to produce letters, reports, and transcripts.
At Californiatranscription.com, we will continue to depend on our expert staff of human transcriptionists to provide the premium-quality, accurate, low-cost transcription services we are known for. Real people, not digital transcribers, produce all our transcripts. We have found this to be more cost-effective, both for our business and for our clients.
