Transcription is an important process with a lot of benefits. Whether it’s writing down what was said in a court trial verbatim or writing subtitles for a TV show, the transcription helps translates spoken dialogue into written text that can be read anytime and anywhere. The problem is that transcription is a tedious process and it takes so much time to write what was said exactly. Thanks to artificial intelligence, it’s now able to transcript a spoken conversation into a text on a piece of document in minutes! Here are some of the best transcription software available.
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- Sep 13, 2021 The Best Free Transcription Software for Mac and PC 2019 This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure for more info. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my recommendations for the best free transcription software based on my experience as a professional audio transcriptionist.
- Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about Dictation - Speech to text. Download Dictation - Speech to text and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac OS X 11.0 or later, or Apple Watch.
13+ Transcription Software
1. Otter.ai
2. Dragon Speech Recognition
TranscribeMe is an audio transcription software designed for the Mac platform and allows the user to enjoy simplicity when it comes to transcription of audio files. Essentially this software uses complex recognition softwares as well as human transcribers to bring quality transcriptions fast and at an affordable rate.
13. Maestra
14. SpokenData
What Is Transcription Software?
Transcription is the action of translating spoken dialogue or conversation into written or typed text. The most important function of transcription is to provide a readable copy of spoken word when videos and audio aren’t available to view or hear. Transcription software uses artificial intelligence to assess spoken dialogue from various forms such as a live conversation, video or audio media, etc., and automatically translates speech into readable text. This process can be done in minutes depending on the length of the provided spoken speech.
Benefits
There are so many benefits of having transcription software. It cuts off so much time needed to translate human speech into text and it does not require so much work on the end of the human transcriber other than correcting misheard words and grammar. Secondly, transcription makes audio content much easier to access for people with hearing loss as they can still access the content with written text that was translated from human speech through subtitles or closed captioning. It also makes the translated text much easier to access with its portability as you can read them everywhere you go. Translating human dialogue into text can also make certain keywords or quotes easier to find on search engines. According to John Wakahiu, translating speech to text will help people find spoken keywords and quotes said in search engines such as Google. This is especially helpful for companies who are seeking to do search engine optimization (SEO) on their visual and audio content. Transcription also provides a lot of data for conversational intelligence analytics as transcription software developers can use data to improve their artificial intelligence in recognizing human speech.
- Transcripts speech into text much quicker which saves time.
- Wider accessibility and portability
- Spoken speech can be accessed as text on search engines
- Enhances artificial intelligence’s translation speech recognition process
Features
A distinguishing difference between a human transcriber and a transcription software is how fast it can transcript spoken speech into text. Through AI, transcription software can translate everything that was spoken to text in a matter of minutes compared to a human transcriber where they have to spend hours transcribing everything to text and listening to the audio media to make sure everything was said in verbatim is transcripted. Another feature is the ability to attach media files that contain audio to the transcription service. Because of how heavy these files are, many transcription software stores these files into a cloud server for wider storage. Many transcription software should have the ability for human transcribers to correct errors in the transcribed text such as misspellings and wrong grammars. AI is not 100 percent accurate so there should be some human interference to help correct these errors.
- Translating spoken speech to text is done in minutes through artificial intelligence
- Audio files are saved through the cloud
- An integrated text editor for any transcription errors
Top 10 Transcription Software
1. Awaken Translate
Awaken Translate offers real-time transcription services and also acts as a language translation software as it can translate spoken speech to text in 15 languages. Other features include as a video and audio editor and exporting transcripted text into subtitles.
2. Otter.ai
Otter.ai uses its own AI technology to translate meetings, video interviews, and speeches into text, either in real-time or through a pre-recorded file. The company was founded in 2016 and has over 44 employees.
3. Dragon Speech Recognition
Founded in 1997, Dragon Speech Recognition assures its clients with high-quality documentation of transcripted text through several features that cater to different industries such as businesses and legal firms.
4. Verbit
Verbit offers interactive tools that mix technology and humanity in transcription and caters to different industries such as media production, legal firms, education, etc. The company was founded in 2016 and has over 1,128 employees.
5. Sonix
Sonix’s AI technology can transcript and translate spoken speech in audio and video files in over 40 languages. Founded in 1986, the company has over 54 employees and earned $11.65 million in sales.
6. Trint
Founded in 2014, Trint makes a transcripted text “searchable, editable and shareable” with its AI technology that can translate over 31 languages and also offers security and data privacy where Trint’s employees can’t access the uploaded files themselves.
7. Happy Scribe
Free Transcription Software Mac
Founded in 2017, Happy Scribe offers its clients to transcript files of any format and size and can automatically translate transcripted text to “common languages” with an AI system that has studied over 60 years’ worth of audio and video material.
8. Audext
Audext wants to be the cost-efficient transcription software that can translate audio and video files to text with a built-in text editor.
9. AmberScript
AmberScript offers high-accurate transcription services where clients can upload files and edit transcripted text easily. Founded in 2017, the company has earned annual revenue of $3 million.
1o. Rev
Express Scribe
Rev emphasizes human collaboration with AI to provide accurate transcription services done by both AI and transcription experts with its unique per-minute rate fee. The company was founded in 2010 and has hired over 50,000 independent workers.
FAQ
Can transcription software access my audio and video files?
Developers of some transcription software can access your files at their discretion to improve their software’s AI speech recognition to provide better results. However, some transcription software does have a feature where security and privacy are enforced to put clients at ease of mind, therefore employees of the software cannot access these files.
Why do human transcribers still need to transcript when AI can do it faster?
The results coming from the AI-transcripted text may not always be 100 percent accurate because some audio and video files might contain portions of inaudible data that the AI cannot properly translate to text. Not to mention that AI does not accurately recognize words that are pronounced by speakers with heavy accents. This is why human transcribers are still required to look over the translated text for proofreading. This is also essential for conversational analytics where the AI can learn from the corrected data to better improve its speech recognition.
Is subscribing to transcription software a worthy purchase?
Depending on the transcription software that individuals businesses get and whether their services are essential to their operations, it should be a worthy purchase as these programs can translate spoken speech to text much faster, making work more efficient and productive.
Artificial intelligence has come a long way as it can, at most, accurately translate speech to text in a matter of minutes. This process is not without errors, but subscribing to transcription software is investing in improving artificial intelligence and conversational intelligence. But most importantly, using these programs can help make the work of transcribing audio to text from a daunting task into a task that can be finished in minutes, putting ease of mind and making work more productive.