How To Get The Best From Audio Transcription Services
Audio transcription services can provide you with written copies of any audio content you may have on modern digital media. The reasons for wanting to do this are many and varied, the most obvious one being that content can be accessed far more readily when it is in written form. You can find what you are looking for so much more easily, and you can also add your own notes easily to the written transcription. There are also people who use this method for creative writing. They find it easier to speak their thoughts into a dictation machine and then have them committed to paper by someone else.
In order for the transcription service to do its job, the audio content must be in digital format. If the content is on CD, you should obviously make a copy and then send that to the transcriber rather than the original. It is usually easier to convert it to a digital file on your PC and then send that directly to the transcription company. In very rare cases, you will find companies who are prepared to handle content stored on old analog media, but these are rare and you will normally need a digital file.
The actual physical transfer of the audio file to the transcriber can be carried out in different ways, and while it may seem complicated to the newcomer it is something which will become automatic once you have done it a few times. The simplest way is just to send a CD through the post, but there are several disadvantages to this. The first is, of course, the inevitable delay in the material reaching its destination. There is also the possibility of loss, and the increased expense which may be significant if you send a lot of work over time.
Audio transcription services are working in a highly competitive industry, as this is fundamentally work which anyone can do. To succeed, they need to offer an incredibly high degree of accuracy and also a very fast turnaround time. Any transcription service which has been established for a few years should be able to guarantee these things. When you are deciding who to give your business to, the first factor to consider is how quickly you need the work doing, and also how quickly you might want other work carrying out in the future.
You may need to pay a slight premium for a lightning fast service, but any competent service will need to be fast in order to compete. You can help the service out and give them the best chance of a quick turnaround by making sure that you have given them the files in the most suitable way. There are many services which will even give you limited FTP information, so you can upload the documents for your chosen audio transcription services. Since audio files would usually be quite large, you cannot possibly send them through email or in any other way. So, FTP is the best method for file transfer.
