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As a legal professional with audio-visual content that you need to translate and convert into text, chances are you aren’t going to transcribe this information on your own. You’ll need help copying out everything in the written word.
At this point, you have to choose where to outsource this important task. Should you enlist a human translator and transcriptionist, or can you run your audio through a speech recognition program?
This is a big question, and the answer has an enormous impact on the cost, schedule, and quality of your work. Before picking one or the other, scroll through this guide to find out how your decision affects your transcription.
Human Transcription Services
Human transcription services take the machines out of this process. Rather than an AI converting your audio into text, you have a real-life linguist that does it by hand.
You can find these linguists with language services tailored to the legal sector. These agencies set a certain standard of professionalism for their employees. Not only do these legal translators and transcriptionists have several years of experience under their belt, but they often specialise in particular legal matters to further refine their skills.
The Pros of Human Transcription Services
- Accurate
- Nuanced
- Specialised
When you need a flawless recounting of audio video, you go to a human. Humans have a greater understanding of legal language in a practical sense. They can overcome background noises, unusual parts of speech, slang, accented speakers, and even different languages.
More still, these transcriptionists specialise in legal terminology translation so that they can easily translate and transcribe unique jargon.
Organisations opt for the human touch when the content and delivery of their scripts are important. Law firms benefit from a human transcriptionist because they can review their work to ensure a 99.8% accuracy rate.
The Cons of Human Transcription Services
- Slower
- Costs More
There’s no way a human can compete with a computer when it comes to executing a task quickly. But this con is one of the reasons why it’s a benefit to so many law firms.
As the saying goes, you can’t rush perfection. A transcriptionist or translator needs time to produce the most accurate results.
That’s not to they’re too slow for rush jobs. If you partner with an established agency, they have a large enough roster of people to assign more people, cutting down on the overall time of the project.
Whether you stick with more time or add more transcriptionists, you’ll pay more for these services than if you went with an app.
Automated Transcription Services
Have you ever said, “Hey, Google,” to your phone before asking it a question? Click the microphone option next to the search bar, if you haven’t. Each word of your question shows up in your search engine, slowly but surely, as Google Assistant transcribes your speech.
Google Assistant joins Siri and Alexa as some of the most widely used speech recognition programs that utilise automated transcription services today. This technology “hears” the spoken word and produces a written copy.
Automated transcription apps aren’t add-ons to smart technology but services that focus exclusively on converting audio information into text. Much like Google Assistant, they rely on powerful algorithms to generate text quickly, although with greater refinement.
The Pros of Automated Transcription Services
- Affordable
- Convenient
- Fast
If a human and app competed against one another, the computer would process considerably more content within the same time constraints.
An app’s speed means it’s ideal for when you’re working against the clock or have a lot of data to go through. Once you take out the man hours, these automated options are often available even on a small budget.
The Cons of Automated Transcription Services
- Prone to Errors
- Unsuitable for Specialised Subjects
While an app can produce fast transcripts of audio-visual content, it may struggle with accuracy. That’s because artificial intelligence may be faster than human linguists, but it doesn’t match the human’s ability to think laterally.
As a result, any sounds that don’t coincide with what it already knows may not be transcribed correctly. Apps struggle with heavily accented speakers, slang, or background noises in your file. These common features are part of the reason why automated transcription services have such a high Word Error Rate (WER).
A 2020 study shows some automatic speech recognition programs have a WER as high as 23%. Their error rate increases when you add translation into the mix.
This WER may be acceptable if you only need a basic transcript for your own records. But it’s harder to justify for client-facing projects or documents you need to file in court.
You may lose any money you potentially save in the beginning if you wind up having to correct errors or redo the transcript.
Bottom Line
While human and automated transcription may serve the same goal — to convert audio to text — how they get there differs drastically.
Apps are fast, cheap, and best suited for internal projects. Humans are more expensive and slower, but they produce technically accurate legal translations.
As you can see, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to transcription. You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons of both methods to decide which option is better for you.
