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How do I
get my program to you?
Media Files
If your program is in the form of
media files you can transfer your files to our
File Transferr. Or, if you have
your own server, just provide the hostname, username, and
password and we'll pick up your programs from there.
Live Recording
We can also record your program live via
telephone patch. This gets the program to us as it happens. We
can provide you a quote for
this service.
CD/DVD
That depends on how time-critical the work is.
Do you need quick turnaround? If so, then overnight service is
the best way.
If time is not a factor, then 2nd-day delivery
or even standard First-Class Mail will work.
Via the Web
We can record your webcast or other streaming
media directly from the web (same rates as telephone recording),
or you can ship/transfer the webcast audio to us.
Magnetic Tapes
We're sorry, but we do not transcribe from any
magnetic media.
What media can
I use?
You can send us your program on any of the
following:
-
CD
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DVD
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*streaming Web media
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media files in all of the popular formats:
CD Audio
DVD Video
WAV
MP2
MP3
MP4
RealAudio
MPEG
WMA
WMV
AVI
AIF
WRF, ARF (WebEx recorded conference)
ASF
DSS (Olympus Digital Voice Recorder)
SDV (Sony Digital Voice recorder)
Others (give us a call and we'll try to accommodate!)
on any of the following media
Recordable CD (CD-R)
Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)
Recordable DVD (DVD-R, DVD+R)
Rewriteable DVD (DVD-RW, DVD+RW)
or
Transfer the files to us via Shadow
File Transfer
or
provide login credentials for your
server and we'll pick them up from there
or
Use a file-transfer service such as Hightail or
DropBox
*Material streamed over the Web must be dubbed
into our transcription interface, which incurs an additional
charge. There is no dubbing charge for downloadable Web media.
Sorry,
we do not handle tape media of any kind.
What factors
affect a transcript's cost?
The final cost of a transcript depends on
several factors. Because of the number of variables, we bill for
our services based on the length of time it takes to do the
transcription, as opposed to a price per line or per page (in
the age of computers, how long is a line or a page anyway?). The
unit of billing we use is the transcription hour, which equates
to an hour of a transcriptionist's time, in quarter-hour
increments. How much of the program a transcriptionist can
complete in an hour depends primarily upon the following:
-
Rate of speech. Assume
we're talking about a 1-hour program. A fast speaker will
cram more words into that hour than a person who speaks at a
more moderate rate. More words means more typing, which
translates into a greater length of time required to
transcribe the program. Additionally, fast speakers tend to
slur words together, making them difficult to interpret.
Conversely,
a slower speaker makes for faster transcription
because there are fewer words in that 1-hour program.
-
Audio quality. Good-quality
audio goes a long way toward producing the most
time-efficient transcription. Here, we refer not only to the
technical quality of the audio, but the overall
intelligibility. If there is a lot of room echo (the speaker
is off-mike), a piece of equipment nearby is humming, or an
audience member sitting by the mike has a cough then the
transcriber may have to go back over the same segment many
times to catch all of the speaker's words.
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. How closely the
transcript needs to resemble the original program will
affect the length of time it takes to transcribe the
program. An exact (or fine) refinement will take longer than
a transcript which is "cleaned up", i.e., where the uhs,
stumbles and repeated words and phrases are eliminated.
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Number of speakers. A
panel discussion takes longer to transcribe than a
single-person presentation, simply due to the need for the
transcriptionist to switch back and forth between speakers.
With multiple speakers there is the possibilty of people
talking over each other. Q&A sessions are in this category
as well.
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Foreign accents. Speakers
whose native language is not American English can be more
difficult to transcribe, and so the
transcript takes longer
to produce.
As a rule of thumb, it takes 4 to 5 hours to
produce a "cleaned-up" transcript of a 1-hour program of good
audio quality with
1 or 2 speakers.
Why does it take 4 to 5 hours to transcribe an
hour-long program if it's only 1 hour?
A person speaks about 200-250 words per
minute, while a transcriptionist can type about 50 words per
minute, depending upon the quality of the program. So a
transcriptionist's typing takes 4 to 5 times the length of time
it takes the speaker to speak (divide 200 or 250 by 50).
Focus groups, panel discussions, and business meetings require
more time to transcribe than do speeches and interviews.
What is
transcript refinement?
At Shadow, we use the guidelines below in
transcribing your program. You tell us how refined you want the
transcript to be as follows:
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Cleaned up. This is the best choice for a
transcript that is intended to be distributed for reading as
opposed to one that will be
used for post-production. We
eliminate the "uhs", throat clearings, repeated phrases,
etc. to improve clarity so that the transcript "reads"
easily.
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Medium. A transcript refined to this level
will contain repeated phrases, self-corrections, etc., but
the "uhs", vocal tics, and other
non-speech sounds are
excluded.
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Fine. This is a word-for-word, uh-for-uh,
exact replication of the program. Every vocal tic, throat
clearing, cough, whatever, will be included in the
transcript. This is a good choice for video post-production
because the editor can decide whether to include or exclude
a segment based on the "quality" of speech without having to
view the segment itself.
These are intended only as guidelines to
indicate the level of refinement we can apply to your
transcript. Of course, we will transcribe the program to any
level of refinement in between as you request.
Can you include timestamps in the transcript?
Yes, many of our clients request this service,
and there is no additional charge!
We can time-stamp your transcript based upon
any of the following:
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Starting time code.
If you give us the starting time code for your
media file, we can fill in the rest!
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Video window dubs.
Does your video have a "window burn-in"? We can transcribe
from video that contains the time code in a window and
include the time code as we transcribe.
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Elapsed time.
Each time stamp represents the elapsed time from the
beginning of the program.
NOTE: We no longer provide extraction of
time code from embedded SMPTE LTC.
How do you
get the transcript back to me?
How would you like it? Our most commonly-used
method is email in which your transcript is sent as an
attachment to an email message. Our transcription rates include
sending the transcript via email to as many recipients as you
wish. If the transcript file is too large to
email, we will
place it on our FTP server for you to pick up, or deliver it via
another method of your choosing (your own FTP server, HIghtail,
WeTransfer, etc).
For an additional charge, we can mail your
transcript to you in hardcopy or CD.
If I
choose an electronic medium, what format do you use?
Our most popular document format is Microsoft
Word for Windows (97/2000/XP/2003/2007/2013). However, we can also
produce transcripts in Word for Macintosh format, Rich Text
Format (RTF), ACSII text, and a variety of WordPerfect formats. If there's a special format you need, we'll do
our best to accommodate you.
What forms
of payment do you accept?
We accept American Express cards, Visa,
MasterCard, Discover, and checks as payment. An invoice is issued at the
completion of the job and terms are net 30 days.
For first-time customers, we may request
credit card payment information (card number, expiration date,
cardholder name) in advance of the job. Once payment history has
been established, you may continue to pay by credit card in the
future, or pay by check.
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