The future of automatic transcription
Today, with the emergence of vocal assistants, voice recognition seems to be becoming a common practice. On the other hand, transcription and automatic transcription are still unknown to the general public. However, these techniques are very useful for many needs and types of activity, companies… Therefore, we will give you here an overview of automatic transcription, its possibilities and especially what is its future. How this technology is going to evolve and gradually enter tomorrow’s uses.
Transcription and professional transcription
First of all, transcribing literally means « transferring something into a different form ». It can be the conversion of a voice recording, but it can also be the conversion of a piece of music. Linguistically, transcription is the conversion of speech, audio into text. In the linguistic sense, transcription is the conversion of speech and audio into text, into a written medium that can then be reused. Transcription is the process, the action is transcribing and the final result is a transcription. It is necessary to transcribe as faithfully as possible.
To put it simply, transcription is about respecting almost word for word the initial recording. This means that absolutely everything is translated: hesitations, repetitions, language tics, grammatical errors etc.
Transcription is the act of writing down the words of the recording, but with certain rephrasing, in correct French and eliminating unnecessary details. Transcription or transcribing are the same, what differs are the desired expectations in terms of writing format. In fact, transcription services are often used by researchers, journalists, lawyers and students. Indeed, these different profiles and professionals are confronted with oral statements, informations, interviews that they will eventually need to have on paper.
The interest, the advantages of automatic transcription
Having both audio and written material saves time and ensures that all details are preserved. What’s more, in certain situations it is much faster and easier to record audio and then process it later in writing. Hence the major interest of transcription!
You can transcribe an interview, an audio, in two ways: manually or automatically. For manual transcription, the transcriptionist listens to the voice recording and types. It is a precise form of transcription but it is often very time-consuming and expensive!
However, automatic transcription has many advantages! Today, there are software programs and applications that allow you to transcribe audio interviews automatically, all by yourself and in a few minutes! Technologies based on artificial intelligence have been developed to recognize words and type them! Magic, isn’t it? Nevertheless, beware, all these transcription software do not have the same quality! There are several reasons for this. Indeed, transcription and automatic transcription require expertise on several levels: audio quality, quality of speech recognition, expertise in the language used… In any case, when the transcription is of high quality, it meets many demands and current issues!
The rise of speech recognition and transcription
As you will have understood, the link between automatic transcription and speech recognition is very close. In fact, it is voice recognition technologies that make it possible to analyze the human voice picked up by a microphone and then transcribe it into text!
Nowadays, with so-called voice assistants – Google, Siri, Alexa – the public is getting into the new habit of using the voice commands of their smartphone to ask questions, formulate commands… without having to use their keyboard! This is called « Voice Search« . Voice Search allows users to talk to a device to perform a search – similar to a keyboard search – but using only their voice. This makes voice search a much easier user experience. This is why web marketing professionals estimate that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be performed by voice search.
But a major problem is that the machine still needs writing and data to process a command! In other words, it needs to « recognize » and « translate » the sound by itself in order to obtain and give the user a result that is itself written down on a search engine, etc. It is a question of linking voice commands that use keywords to respond to what the human user requests orally. It is quite complex.
Utility of automatic transcription
This is why automatic and/or manual transcription is actually very useful! The process is used by assistants as well as by a user. What’s more, using an automatic transcription application such as ours is much more accurate and allows direct access to an optimal rendering. That will save you time and above all efficiency! It is always necessary to combine technology and people.
Based on automatic speech transcription, Authôt is an online audio transcription technology. All you have to do is send your audio or video file, indicate your transcription criteria and send! Then the application works and transcribes your file automatically. Our system is 95% reliable! You speak, we write! With already more than 26,328 hours of transcribed recordings, we have a real expertise in the field and can thus register on the future of these technologies, the future for different types of users.
The future of automatic transcription
It does seem that automatic transcription is still at its beginning. Especially with the increasing growth of voice searches! The voice revolution is on the move, with a major use of voice and audio. High-tech companies are going to bet on it… which implies real needs for automatic transcription.
The giants of the industry have understood this. Especially Google! Indeed, to improve the referencing of its podcasts, Google now generates an automatic transcription for each episode. By generating text versions from audio sources, it allows you to find a podcast thanks to the words spoken during the episode. Until now, indexing podcasts was difficult, because words could only be added in the title and description of the file. By relying on transcription, Google will clearly differentiate itself from its competitors in the audio sector.
Google is currently running tests, but if these prove successful, it may well extend automatic transcription for YouTube. In fact, YouTube already transcribes the audio of its videos but only for subtitles, not yet for video referencing. This could make a big difference!
In addition, the transcript will be able to help advertising by showing ads based on what you listen to and watch via Google – because you have to generate text for that!
All in all, with the emergence of voice search, better accessibility of audio and the need for transcription in all sectors, the future of automated transcription looks very promising!
Authôt. You speak. We write.