Automated Transcription Services

I have been using Trint for automated transcription for about 3 years for my longer interviews (30-40 minutes), but it is switching its pricing structure from $15 per hour (with extra minutes rolled over each month) to a monthly price structure with unlimited hours at $60/month with an option to "pause" months if I don't use the service.
Problem is ... I only use the software around 10-12 hours a year, which would more than double my costs.

So, time to price shop. What services do you use and how accurate are they? It's been a few years since I have gone shopping for this, so I assume there are other good ones on the market now. I know there are also services where you send a file to someone and they do it for you, so I'm open to that as well.

 

I use Otter. It’d be free most months for your needs (I use it for about three hours a month). And it saves to the cloud. That way, I can use my computer headphones and just sign into otter.ai to pull up the transcript/recording.

The transcript isn’t amazing, but you can easily find what you want to hear again.

 

Thanks! Trying it now!

 

Paraphrase. It don’t cost a thing.

 

I use otter.ai

It is not always accurate enough that you can just copy and paste. However, you can find the section you want, and the program synchs up the audio so you can re-listen just to that part and fix the section you need. There is a search function at the top, and the software even gives you a list of keywords from the transcription.

I can come out of a multi-source media availability, upload all the audio to otter, do something else for 5-10 minutes, and by then the interviews are ready to use.

 

I use Otter, and I've used Temi. They're both probably about 80-85 percent accurate, as others have said. Temi is supposed to be a one-use free trial before you have to pay, but I work at a place with a lot of computers, so I can bounce around and create burner email addresses at mail.com and never pay. I mean....I know somebody who has done that.

I'm not sure if Otter has a pay structure or not, but I use it from my main computer and it's been free so far.

 

My usage has been admittedly limited, but I haven't found Otter to be the life-changer I was told it would be. The transcriptions seem 50% correct and 50% complete nonsense. I used it for a 75-minute interview a few months ago and spent about the same amount of time cleaning it up as I would have just transcribing from start to finish. And it's not just for any 1-on-1 interviews where I could blame my fast-talking marble mouth. I've found the same ratio the handful of times I've used it in scrums. It's good but not great. YMMV.

 

I'll agree that Otter isn't perfect. But even going through and correcting the transcription saves a substantial amount of time to me over just transcribing it myself.

 

Trint was decent. I'd say 80-90% right if it was quiet. Around 60-75% if there was background noise. But I like the "base" of having it all transcribed and listening through to correct where I need to/delete what I don't need. It really sped up turning around a 3-4,000-word piece.

 

Rev.com's been my go to for the last couple of years, but they've also recently increased their rate. Not that that's helping the freelance per-gig transcribers: Rev transcribers hate the low pay, but the disturbing recordings are even worse
...which likely describes their condition for all of these services.