Transcription Guide
All interviews should be transcribed with time code, if possible, with completed transcripts made available to us as a text (.txt) or Word (.doc or .docx) file. Unfortunately, this is a much longer and arduous process than recording the actual interview, taking as much as three to five times as long. (That means 3 to 5 hours of transcribing for every hour of recorded interview). There is no complete substitute for human transcribing, especially in regards to correctly identifying names of people and places and recognising industry jargon.
However, we have used a British company, Speechmatics (www.speechmatics.com), which offers an easy, fast and inexpensive automated service that can save a significant amount of the time involved in creating a first draft of a transcription. The higher the quality of sound, the better the automated service performs, thus reducing the amount of time required for corrections and the costs involved.