25
October
2007
I have just finished transcribing a conference for a client. Since they took the plunge and went digital their conference recordings have improved enormously … so I was a bit surprised to find that the audience parts of the question and answer session were rather poor on this recording. The rest of the recording was absolutely fine.
On returning the completed transcript I mentioned this to my client and she replied that this wasn’t too surprising as their digital recording system was down and the whole thing was recorded on a Dictaphone!
So I went from being amazed at how poor the question and answer session was, to amazed at how good the rest of it was! Nevertheless, I would still not recommend recording a conference on a Dictaphone if you have any choice in the matter. Dictaphones are great for dictation … and usually that’s about as far as it goes. I think this must have been a particularly good one! See my article on getting recording equipment that’s right for you for more information on this.
So what should you do when recording a conference for transcription? Well, the fundamentals are (usually!) a good recording system, a roving microphone for the question and answer sessions, and providing your transcriptionist with key words, a speaker list and a delegate list if possible. Full details are available in my articles on this subject, What the conference organiser needs to know and outsourcing transcription for conferences .
Posted: General Transcription
9
October
2007
Podcasts are an increasingly popular means of putting information across over the internet, but many people are missing out on an important aspect of this. Providing a text version too.
It may seem silly to go to all the trouble of recording and broadcasting an interview on your website, only to get it transcribed into a text version. However, there are a number of reasons for doing so. One important point is that hearing-impaired people may struggle to, or be completely unable to, follow a podcast. Another is searchability. This has two aspects. Firstly someone listening to a podcast will be unable to search for a particular point. They many want to do this because they’ve already listened to the podcast and they want to revisit a specific point, or because they’re familiar with the interviewee and want to know what he/she said about a particular point. Secondly, search engines, although they are working hard to be able to access video, can’t search through the speech itself to pick out words and match with key words in the same way that they do for text. This means that a podcast that’s really relevant to a particular point may be missed entirely by the search engines when bringing up results about that point – unless you have a text version available.
So, if you’re thinking about doing a podcast then think about getting it transcribed too! For advice on getting a good recording and a good transcription, see my top ten tips.
Posted: General Transcription
9
October
2007
If you’re planning a conference some careful thought needs to go into your post-conference pack. Usually with academic conferences the speakers will submit full papers relating to their talks, so there is no need to have the conference recorded and transcribed, because the conference proceedings can be put together from these. However, this is rarely the case for other conferences such as business-related or political meetings. In such cases the speakers are often recorded for later transcription, but there are a number of things a conference organiser needs to consider when seeking to get the recordings transcribed. These include getting decent recording equipment in the first place, making sure that if you’re going to have a panel session all the panel have microphones AND you have a roving mike in the audience, and, assuming you want the delegates asking the questions to be identified in the transcript, providing your transcriptionist with a delegate list, not just a speaker list. For other things that should be considered please see my article on conference transcription
Posted: General Transcription