Almost exactly a year ago I took a quick look at three automated transcription tools, and today there's another one to add to the mix, though this one's not free. NVivo has launched an automated transcription service and I'm impressed! I uploaded the same audio clip I used in last year's shootout, a 40-second snippet from the inauguration of George W. Bush, and here's what NVivo made of it:
Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I George Walker Bush do solemnly swear. George Walker Bush do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations.
It didn't pick up the separate speakers, but other than that it was a perfect transcription of a somewhat noisy audio clip, which moves it to the top of the list of the one's I've looked at so far.
You'll get 15 minutes of free transcription when you sign up (and as far as I can tell, you could use this w/o having a license for NVivo), though you DO have to enter a credit card to get an account. You can access the tool from within NVivo, on the Create tab:
Or from the website of your account, which is what I did. You just browse to your audio file and hit "upload". NVivo claims transcription occurs at 2x speed, so this should've only taken 20-seconds to transcribe. In my case it was just going and going, so I refreshed my browser after two minutes and it was all done, so that may be a little bug, or more likely something with my browser.
Cost of the service is on a per/hour basis, as follows:
I honestly have no idea if that's a fair price, but it certainly seems like it is. If you needed quality transcription I suspect you could pay a lot more. A major bonus is that this service covers 28 different languages! Feel free to try out one you know and let me know if the quality is still this high. Oh, I chose "English - North American" when I tried the Bush file.
Pretty nifty overall, I think.
