We have been fine-tuning our transcription process to improve the accuracy of the transcripts. Our process is a bit more involved from the usual transcription process where a person works on the complete file. Instead we split up the file into smaller parts and several transcribers and reviewers work on each part individually. The parts are then collated into the final transcript.

Our process tries to remove, to the extent possible, tediousness from the transcription work. Since files are small (around 6 minutes) a transcriber has to spend no more than 45 minutes to 1 hour on each file. Studies have shown that the average human concentration span is around that mark; a person can maintain the same concentration level on one task for no more than an hour, after which a break is required. Therefore splitting up files has an noticeable impact on the accuracy.

But this also introduces the problem of inconsistency. Since different parts are worked on by different people, a specific term which appears in one part may not appear the same way in the other parts. Our first approach for solving this problem was to use a dictionary. After the final transcript was done we used to cross check the file against a vocabulary of commonly occurring terms and correct the mistakes. But this approach only solved the problem partially since it was hard to catch all the inconsistencies.

The best we accuracy we could get to was around 95% with this process. But we wanted to improve it. So now, we have added another step of review. This final review is done by a single transcriber who goes through the entire file and corrects all the inconsistencies. We have been doing this since the past few months and have found this to be much more effective than the dictionary approach. Consequently our accuracy has gone up to 98 to 100%.

Because of the additional review step our costs have also gone up; from 50 cents per minute to 75 cents per minute. This rate has been in effect for around 3 months and we are quite pleased with the results. We are still around 25 to 50% cheaper than other professional transcription services available. That is the result of our transcription process and the system we have developed to manage it.

The increased price also gives a little bit flexibility. Therefore we have also started offering discounts for bulk orders. If you order for more than 10 hours at a time then you can avail a 10% discount on the total price. We will also initiate a seasonal discount program sometime in the future.

So try out our improved transcription service and order a transcript today!

Our our transcription subsytem has undergone a complete revamp. As a result there are several changes to it. The major one’s are:

We have transitioned to a complete manual process for transcription from an mixed automated and manual process. This means

• No more screening of the files
• Flat 0.50 per minute rate for all kinds files
• Improvements in quality of transcripts

Transcript orders can be placed from the uploaded records page. Earlier it was from the transcript page which used to list all the screened recordings.

The limit of 60 seconds on transcripts orders has also been removed. Transcript orders can now be placed for files of any length.

Rates

Do you have a fast typing speed? Are you comfortable with American, UK and Australian accents of English? Are you interested in audio transcription?

Our Freelance Transcription Program is ideally suited for you. Our transcription process is partly automated and partly manual and we are looking for help in the manual part. All you need is a computer, internet connection and a good quality headset. We will tell you which tools to use and the way to do it. We’ll take a test and approve you if it matches our quality requirements. Thereafter you can start earning with Call Graph!

Contact us for the details.

Sample Call Graph Transcript – Born To Misrepresent Podcast

Click to play

This podcast was recorded last year when we had just launched Call Graph. We finally found some time to transcribe it with our system and post it here.

A couple of points about our transcription.

• It is time coded.
• The words which cannot be transcribed are timestamped and marked with blank ____.
• Its provided in Word, PDF and Open Office Document formats.
• If names of the speakers are mentioned then we use their initials. Otherwise we use Speaker 1, Speaker 2 etc.

For high quality voice recordings of your Skype conversation, please use the following settings

• Recording Mode: Stereo – 2 channels
• Sampling Rate: 16000 Hz
• Bit Rate: 128 kbps
• Echo Cancellation: OFF

The first three can be configured from the ‘Recording’ tab of the configuration dialog. The last two are in the ‘Advanced’ Tab.

Tips:

• First and foremost, use a headset instead of the inbuilt speaker and mic. It helps to keep the background noise to the minimum and reduces the possibility of any echo during the call.
• If you get an echo then drop the call and try again. If possible, record a test call first and play it back to make sure things are fine.
• For SkypeOut and Conference calls, ensure that the call quality is good enough before you start the recording. Make a few test calls before the actual one if possible.
• Close all other applications which might use your internet bandwidth during that period. Usual browsing should not interfere but downloads or uploads (or BitTorrent) severely hampers the call quality.
• If possible, reboot your machine once before you start on the call. It clears up the memory and performs better.
• Finally, keep an eye on the status displayed at the bottom of the Toolbar as well during the call. It should be showing ‘Recording in progress’. If not restart the call and the recording.

Explanation:

Technically speaking, these settings are optimal for our system. The Speech Recognition engine that we use works in the wideband mode (16 kHz) and the 128 kbps bit rate preserves the optimal voice quality in the mp3 files. Encoding in two track mode enables us to split up each of the track separately and process them.

If you have more questions then feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

So what after the recording. You are obviously recording the call with some purpose. Our web serivce, CRIMS which stands for Call Recording Indexing and Management, provides you with several options once you are done with the recording. I’ll briefly go over the things you can do with CRIMS in this article.

Registering:

You need to register for our web service to use it. Registration is free and straightforward. Provide your mail id to us and we’ll send you a link. Click on the link and we’ll ask you to fill out a form. And you are done.

Several of our users have reported that they are not getting the mails at all. It happens because a lot of mail clients (especially Hotmail) treats such mails as spam. Hence check your spam folder if you do not get the mail. You can always request for a new mail from the register page as well.

Setting up the Account:

This web service works with our Skype call recorder only. So before you can do anything with it, you need to associate and verify your client installation. If you haven’t already installed the client, then its the right time to do so. Get it from here.

On your computer, right click on the Call Graph task bar icon, choose ‘Configuration’, go to the ‘Association’ page and enter your username and password that you used to create your account. Click on the ‘Associate’ button. You should get a notification saying that your machine has been added and it needs to be approved before calls can be uploaded. The approval has to be done from the Machines page.

If you want all your calls records to be automatically uploaded to your account then make sure that ‘Automatically upload a copy to my account’ option on the associations page. The upload happens independently of call recording in the background. So you can carry on with your work and record more calls if you want.

Uploading:

Now that your account is set up, you can start uploading calls. Start a call with ‘echo123′ and record it. If you have opted to upload calls manually, open the Call Graph history dialog (right click on the CG Task bar icon and choose ‘History’) and click on the upload link below the file name. Otherwise the upload starts as soon as the call recording completes.

The client will notify you when the upload finishes. After that login to your account. You should see something like this.

Call Recording History:

This is your call record history page. This is the first page you are shown when you log in to your account and is the starting point if you want to do something with your record. There are two parts to this page: the left hand menu and the history table. The menu lists down the other pages that you can go to. We’ll get to that in a short while.

In the call record history there are two main parts: the details column and the management column. The details column displays the details of your call record. When was it recorded, by whom, when was it uploaded, was it shared with someone and so on.  It also has an embedded flash player. Click on the play button and you should be able to listen to your record.

The management column gives you a set of actions that you can do with your record. Few of them are self explanatory. You can rename the file, edit the tags or delete it in the same way you can do in the client. You can also download it back if you want. Helpful if you are recording calls from several machines.

Note that when you delete the file its completely removed for our system. There is no way to get it back. You can do a ‘reupload’ if you still have it in your client though.

As with the client, this page also displays your call records in reverse chronological order, the latest one first.

Sharing:

If you want to share it with someone, maybe the person you recorded the call with, click on the share link. It will ask you for the email id and instructions of how to access the record will be sent to your contact.

Once you share a record, a new field will start appearing your your details column stating with whom was the record shared with. There will be a new option in the management column as well to unshare the call record. If you mistakenly shared your record, click on unshare and all the shares will be revoked.

Note that the contact you have shared your call with can only play it back. Since you are the owner of this record, only you have can delete, share, transcribe etc.

Transcribe:

If you want a text transcript for your call then click on the transcribe link. We provide transcripts for calls which pass our quality checks. The parameters for quality check include voice quality, your language setting (must be American English for now) and duration (> 5 minutes).

Once the screening is passed you will be notified of it. You can click on the transcribe link and place an order for the transcript from there.

As we go along we will add support for many more languages and accents. This post has a some details of our transcription process if you are interested to know more.

Search:

One of the most interesting feature of our web service is Search. We can do contextual searches. When your call records are being screened we generate a list of keywords which can be used to identify your call record. These keywords added to the tag list of your call record. So now you can actually search for a call with a word which might have occurred during the call itself.

A search bar is present at the top of the history page. Type in your search term and press enter. It should take you to a the ‘Search Results’ page where all records matching your search terms will be listed.

As with the client, we also add the your contact’s name by default to the tag list. So if you want to list all the call records with a particular contact of yours, just search for it and it will display the timeline.

The search is also very basic currently since we lack good language and grammar databases. But as we keep on improving the system, it should start getting more and more useful.

What Else:

You can add more machines to your account if you want from the machines page. As many as you want!

You can also mail us directly from the support page if you want to ask us something.

You can also change your password, or your language setting or delete your account from the settings page. if you click on delete, we delete all the records and personal data you have provided us with. We retain nothing!

Note that if you do not want your call records to be screened then you can set your language setting to ‘Other’.

What’s Next:

As you would have noticed, the UI is very simple and basic. Very Web 1.0′ish. But we are working on a major upgrade to it and things will be much better soon. So keep tuned.

If you havent signed up already then please do it now. Click here. We are offering all these services for free in the beta phase. So give it a try and let us know what you think of it!