technology Simon Creasey on the ways to take the pain out of a tedious task Transcription


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ranscribing interviews is painful. Most journalists hate doing it; it is time consuming and laborious. However,


‘intelligent’ audio-to-text transcription services, which claim they can take the pain out of transcribing, have been set up over the past couple of years. The two most popular are Sonix and


Temi. Jason Chicola, CEO and co-founder of Temi, which was launched in July 2017, describes it as an automated speech recognition engine that transcribes audio to text. Users upload an audio or video file to


the Temi website and, within minutes, receive access to a transcript of the interview. Temi also has a mobile app that allows you to record, store and submit audio for immediate transcription. Once the transcript is ready, you can use Temi’s ‘editor tool’ to “fine-tune the transcript, follow along with the original recording and highlight important parts”, explains Chicola. He claims Temi saves journalists an “immense amount of time”. “Journalists spend, on average, six hours a week transcribing audio,” says Chicola. “Over the course of a year, that adds up to two lost business months. Temi transcribes files in just minutes. With all the time Temi gives back to journalists, the reporting process becomes faster, and users gain a competitive advantage in being the first to report or break a story.” Chicola says many journalists also use the app to record story ideas and ‘to do’ lists. “One journalist uses Temi during his


commute time to create first drafts of content,” he adds. “The average person speaks at a rate of 150 wpm [words per minute], whereas the average person types at 40 wpm. That means a


18 | theJournalist


five-minute audio recording is around 750 words. The time savings are simply life-changing.” Temi is relatively inexpensive. It


charges $0.10 per minute of audio and there is no an extra charge for additional voices, which many manual transcription companies impose. Of course, transcription accuracy depends heavily on the quality of the audio or video file. Chicola reckons a file with little background noise can yield a transcript that is 90-95 per cent accurate, whereas one with heavy background noise and cross talking will be less so. Sonix is similar to Temi. The company


claims that, depending on audio quality, the accuracy of its transcriptions can be as high as 98%. Like Temi, it offers a wide range of editing tools that allow users to “polish” transcriptions – and uses a ‘thermometer icon’ to show how confident it is that words have been transcribed correctly. The speed of delivery is similar to Temi – the site can transcribe a 30-minute recording in three to four minutes. However, it has a different pricing structure. “We have a variety of options depending on how many users need access,” explains the company’s co-founder Jamie Sutherland. For individual users it costs $6 per recorded hour ($0.10 per minute) but, unlike Temi, charges a monthly subscription free of $11.25. It also offers multi-user subscriptions. Sutherland says Sonix was launched after its founders identified an opportunity to


“reinvent the transcription industry”. “The fact that Sonix stitches the audio to the transcript so that you can play a word by clicking on the text is very helpful to journalists, especially when there is so much scrutiny of the press,” says Sutherland. “Being able to verify source information with one click is paramount.”


I tested both sites and found there


was not a great deal to choose between them. In terms of accuracy, Temi performed slightly better but only marginally so. I also found Temi’s editing tools were slightly more user friendly but, again, there was not much of a difference.


Both sites seemed to struggle with


how certain words were pronounced (thanks to my slight regional accent) and both failed to transcribe the names of people and companies accurately. However, given that the 52-minute


interview I submitted cost less than $6 to process (both sites offer free trials), took less than eight minutes to be transcribed and needed only a little polishing, I’m prepared to overlook these drawbacks for the time savings.


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