What goes into transcribing a recording?

We know that the documents that we produce are often required urgently for use in court proceedings, business meetings and to meet research deadlines. We wish that we could wave a magic wand and produce perfect transcripts instantaneously but unfortunately that’s not within our power at the moment!

Apple Transcription aims to strike a balance between efficiency and quality and we will never compromise the quality of a transcript in order to speed up the transcription process.

We don’t use any voice to text computer programmes as these are highly problematic and can result in unacceptable errors (as covered in our blog of April 26^th).   This means that for every recording that you send a highly-skilled, vetted and experienced typist will listen manually and type everything they hear.

We’re always happy to work with our clients to accommodate tight deadlines, but as many professionals know, audio dictation can be an extremely time-consuming process and rushing can result in poor quality transcripts.

On average, an hours’ worth of audio will take an experienced transcriber four to five hours to type, and this estimate increases if a recording has a high number of speakers or is of poor quality with background noise or interference.  Once typed, a member of our proof reading team will review the work of the transcriber against the original recording and this can take between 30 minutes and 2 hours (per hour of recording) depending on the sound quality.  We also encourage our transcribers to take short, frequent breaks from their computer (e.g., a 5-10 minute break after 50-60 minutes) in line with guidance from the Health and Safety Executive.

Having said this, trying to cover the same volume of typing in-house can take your admin staff away from more pressing tasks and outsourcing to a specialist company can save valuable company time.  An admin assistant who isn’t used to transcription work and may not have the correct equipment will take much longer to produce a transcript than an experienced typist.

Our standard turnaround is 5 working days from receipt of your recording and we also offer an expedited 2 working day service for an additional 20 percent on our standard fee.  Depending on the availability of our typists and proof readers we will always endeavour to complete transcripts ahead of schedule.  If your transcription project requires a quicker turnaround please call us on 0845 604 5642 to speak to one of our advisors about availability and pricing.