In the digital age, it’s easier than ever to capture audio and video. Heck, anyone with a smartphone (that’s 5 billion of us around the world) can record hours of high-quality audio with the tap of a finger. Yet, while audio and video may be easier than ever to capture, they’re just as difficult as before to extract data from, unless you have a transcription of it.
You can’t search an audio or video file in the same way you can search a written document. And as you undoubtedly already know, you can’t use CTRL+F to find a critical word, statistic, or phrase in an audio or video file. For this reason, if you’re capturing audio or video in any professional or academic capacity, you need a transcribing service.
A transcribing service—including specialized legal transcription services for court recordings, depositions, or client interviews—can condense your lengthy and inscrutable audio and video files into highly accurate text documents that are infinitely more searchable and easier to parse for the information you need.
In This Article, You’ll Know How:
- Transcription services make your audio and video content searchable, accessible, and usable in professional contexts.
- Attempting transcription yourself can cost significantly more time than expected—and still result in low accuracy.
- Professionals across industries—from law and HR to video production and academia—rely on transcription to streamline workflows.
- Different transcription formats (verbatim, intelligent, summarized, or automated) serve different needs and accuracy expectations.
Can’t I do it myself?
It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that you’d be able to transcribe your own audio or video files. However, those who try quickly learn that it’s a much more complex and more painstaking process than they realized. The industry standard for a transcription service is four hours of transcription time for every hour of audio. For an inexperienced amateur, it’s likely to take significantly longer, like 10 times longer if you have no experience.
Professional transcription providers, especially those offering specialized court transcription services, have the expertise, tools, and experience to ensure your recordings are converted into accurate, properly formatted text in a fraction of the time it would take to do it yourself.
A transcribing service can get you the data you need from your video or audio file with;
- Accuracy
- Affordability
- A time that fits your deadlines
Who needs a transcribing service?
There are many professional, creative, and academic contexts where transcribing services are invaluable. Many people use them to gain quick and easy access to the data that matters. Here are just a few common industry use cases;
| Industry / Field | How Transcription Helps |
| Legal | Legal professionals require accurate transcriptions of depositions, interviews, and court hearings to build their cases and protect their clients effectively. Specialized deposition transcription services ensure accuracy and reliability in critical legal proceedings. |
| Human Resources | HR teams often rely on transcription of meetings and interviews when making decisions about hiring, promotions, possible disciplinary actions, and terminations. |
| Business and Strategy | Transcribing business meetings can be an excellent alternative to minute-taking, offering greater accuracy, detail, and clarity. It also allows participants to stay engaged without worrying about taking notes or missing key information. |
| Law Enforcement | Police officers and other law enforcement professionals depend on transcripts from interviews, jail calls, statements, and undercover recordings to help build and support their cases. |
| Video Production | Not all video production is scripted, but all videos benefit from subtitles for accessibility and ease of use. Transcription provides production teams with post-production transcripts for editing, which can easily be converted into SRT files for subtitling. |
| Medico-Legal | From diagnosticians to clinical psychiatrists and forensic experts, medico-legal professionals often take detailed voice notes or record case discussions. Medico-legal transcription services make these audio files more accessible, searchable, and ready for legal documentation or medical records. |
| Academia | Lecturers may transcribe past lectures (in full or in part) to incorporate them into slides or handouts, while students can transcribe lectures, TED Talks, interviews, focus groups, and other resources when writing papers or theses. |
What kinds of transcription are there?
There are numerous types of transcription services available, and although different providers may use different names for them, they broadly fall into one of these categories.
- Full Verbatim – The raw, unaltered transcript, including verbal tics like “umm”, “uhh”, “y’know?”, false starts, stutters, etc.
- Intelligent verbatim – Here, you still get a word-for-word transcript of the audio, with all the “umms” and “uhh”s, etc., removed for clarity.
- Notes – Deviations and off-topic talk are removed, and the transcript is condensed into a series of notes.
- Speech to Text – Speech-to-text apps can convert hours of audio into text in minutes. Be wary when using them; however, most struggle to achieve over 50% accuracy, and that’s only when your audio is perfect with no distracting background noise, accents, or interference of any kind.
Why Choose Us for Your Transcription Service Needs?
We provide you with precisely what you need from a transcription service. We provide guaranteed accuracy because we use a carefully selected pool of talented and experienced transcribers. We are fully flexible and can work within your budget and schedule, helping you find the right combination of speed and affordability to meet your needs.
What’s more, we are fully compliant with all relevant data protection laws (HIPAA, HITECH, CJIS) and keep your data right here in the US, ensuring compliance and safety. That’s essential when a transcribing service is working with sensitive data. Be wary of any transcribing service that ships your data off to be transcribed in another country, as they may not be subject to the same stringent data laws. We can even send you our BAA (Business Associate Agreement), NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), and a confidentiality agreement if you wish.
It’s simple. Send us your file through our secure online FTP file-sharing system. Alternatively, you can also mail or drop off hard copies of your audio.
Next, your file will be carefully handled by our dedicated account manager, quality assurance manager, and experienced transcription team. You’ll have a fully personalized transcription experience from start to finish.
Our team will work diligently to return your file to you within your chosen timeframe.
Once it’s ready, we’ll send your error-free transcription online by email, via our secure online file server, or you can pick it up at our centrally located office in Denver.
Are you in a rush? No worries — We offer same-day service for your convenience.
What will all this convenience cost you? With Ditto Transcripts, you’ll pay 25-50% less than if you hired a traditional transcriptionist. You can check out our legal transcription prices to know more.
Check out our competitive rates and same-day service options here.
How To Get Started?
Does Ditto Transcripts sound right for you? Testimonials could help you decide.
Start by clicking ‘Contact Us’ above and then fill out the form with your information and project details. You’ll then receive a confirmation email letting you know we’ve received your request and we’re looking into it.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based FINRA, HIPAA, and CJIS-compliant transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote.