Transcription services have become one of the most highly demand services required by businesses for the following reasons:
- Saves time, effort and money from transcribing in-house
- Provides alternative communication methods for their customers
- Effective marketing strategy for their website and blogs
- Good referential documentation for important meetings and discussions
However, transcribing an audio or video may not be as simple as what many businesses think. There are many factors to consider when it comes to providing transcription. What makes transcription services more misleading is the stereotypical belief that the whole idea and concept of transcription is simply “translating” words spoken from an audio or video, into text. This belief creates many misconceptions and we want to clarify the 3 major misconceptions that businesses have about transcription.
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Transcription is so simple that anyone can do it
This is arguably one of the key beliefs that is incorrect on so many levels. When doing transcription, some factors 
that need to be considered are:
- Quality of the audio and video file
Have you ever been in a conference meeting where you’re having a discussion over a speaker phone and at some point you can’t hear what the person on the other side is saying? It could be because of distortion or background noises. The difference between transcribing the audio and having a conversation is that you can ask the person to repeat until you are able understand him or her clearly.
With transcribing, when the audio quality is poor, there isn’t the luxury of asking the person to repeat again. Yes, one might say the audio can simply be put on replay mode but it does not change the fact that the transcriptionist still has to make out what is said in the audio with the same distortion.
- Accents
If you’re living in Europe, you may find it difficult to understand certain Asian accents, vis a vis. For example, getting a Chinese transcriptionist to understand the Irish accent can be very challenging. The ability to decipher the audio and video file with an accent takes tremendous time and effort.
- Number of people featured is the audio file
Transcribing a lecture is vastly different from transcribing a conference meeting or discussion. Sometimes there will be multiple parties involved and if a transcriptionist is not skilled enough to be able to decipher which individual is speaking then that will create a huge problem with the completed document.
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Speech recognition technology can replace manual transcription
With technology and innovation on the rise, why then do we still need transcription services? Regardless of 
software development and its advancements, whether it’s neural machine translation for translation of languages or speech recognition software for transcription, the human touch still plays a very vital role for the following reasons:
- The software will not be able to format the document in a manner that is suitable for your business, clients or industry needs.
- The software will not be able to edit nor proofread the completed document.
- The software may not recognize different accents.
- The software is unable to filter out extraneous words, particularly for verbatim transcriptions.
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A 60-minute audio takes 60 minutes to transcribe
Undoubtedly, this is still one of the major misconceptions that have been floating around for many years. There is no fixed duration a transcriptionist may take to complete an audio or video file. Some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration are; the quality of the audio, technical nature of the audio, industry language and terms, number of people in the audio, accents, formatting requirements, and most importantly, the transcriptionist’s experience.
Although there are more misconceptions about transcription services, these are the 3 crucial major points that businesses need to be clarified on.
Hiring an in-house transcriptionist may be cost effective but it may not solve some issues. He or she may be well-versed in the industry and knowing the right language and terms spoken but to be able to pick out different accents, decipher multiple people conversing, handling technical issues may result in poor time management and inefficiency of production. Hence, one of the most highly effective methods for the long-term business solution is to engage, partner, or collaborate with a professional language solutions service provider. Work with a credible and trusted agency that has been around for many years. One with a professional pool of linguists that can provide all the language needs for your business like translation services, interpretation services, and transcription services. Having the ability and skills to fulfil all the above-mentioned issues and requirements, you can be sure your business will thrive tremendously as this era of the internet continues to create more opportunities that bring the world closer.