Archive for the 'text transcripts' Category
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The LiveJournal blogging platform offers members the ability to do voice posts, and text transcripts are either made by the creator of the podcast or the readers; it’s a community-driven effort and works quite well – many people are willing to do this. Podcasts that are under three minutes are automatically transcribed by SpinVox.
Previously:
Spinvox: voicemail to text service
Casting Words transcripting services
Project ReadOn – free web captions
Speche Communications: real time text streaming
Jott’s potential to transcribe podcasts is unrealized
Earize Text Streaming for Internet Radio
Podcast transcripts for the deaf
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Casting Words transcripting services are text transcripts made of podcasts and other MP3/MP4 files and are created by humans, not computers. Turnaround time is 3-4 working days and the cost is $0.75 per minute. If you need it done in 24 hours, the rates are $2.50 per minute.
Previously:
Project ReadOn – free web captions
Speche Communications: real time text streaming
Jott’s potential to transcribe podcasts is unrealized
Earize Text Streaming for Internet Radio
Podcast transcripts for the deaf
Listen to this as a podcast:
Jott, which I blogged about earlier today, has another feature where users can leave a short voice message that will be typed up and posted to their blog. It only allows about 30 seconds of spoken text, which is a shame; if the time was unlimited, this would solve the issue of a lack of text transcripts available for podcasts.
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SimulScribe is a voice mail transcribing service that is primarily aimed at hearing people who are too busy to listen to their voice mails. For a small fee, voice mails are transcribed into text and either emailed to the subscriber, or sent in text message format. These services are provided free already by IP-Relay and i711, so I am not convinced the deaf market would be interested in this service, but you never know.
EDIT 04/05/07: It occurred to me that this would be an useful service for deafies who have Skype.
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Recently I had a job interview where I met with the interviewers in an office in downtown San Francisco. Two of the other interviewers were in Brazil, so they set up a conference call so that the people in Brazil could listen in. They assured me that the conference room would have Internet access, so I planned to bring my laptop so I could connect to IP-Relay via AIM and participate in the conference call this way.
Unfortunately, when I arrived, the internet connection in the conference room didn’t work. However, I never go anywhere without my T-Mobile Sidekick, so I whipped that out, logged onto AIM, and connected with an IP-Relay operator and jumped right into the conference call. It was a little daunting trying to keep up with seven people talking; the typed conversations moved very quickly up the small screen of my Sidekick, so I had to do a lot of scrolling up and down to keep up. My thumbs got pretty tired from all the typing I was doing, but it worked!
Deafies can participate in any conference call by connecting with a Relay operator from various services such as IP-Relay and i711. It works aquedately enough, but most standard Relay operators are not trained to handle conference calls and will often make misspellings and typing errors.
Sprint offers Sprint Relay Conference Captioning services, staffed by professional captioners who have experience captioning for live television broadcasts. Their typing skills are much faster and they can keep up with the rapid-fire back and forth spoken discussion better than a standard Relay operator, and they are less likely to make mistakes in their typing. After the call, users can get a full text transcript if they desire.
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Spinvox is a new service that provides speech-to-text service for voice mails. Voice mails are typed up and emailed or text messaged to subscribers for a fee. While deafies get this service free already with IP-Relay and i711, what makes Spinvox stand out is that they’re working on Skype integration.
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I just discovered a new technology called Earize, which calls itself an internet text streaming service. From their website:
Earize is an Internet streaming text service. This service can be used exclusively for caption radio, and to assist deaf and hard of hearing people in meetings, telephone conferences, and seminars, to name a few. Audiences can be increased by 8.6% just by reaching the folks with hearing loss. The service is also a vehicle for additional advertising to this sometimes overlooked segment.
Users can read the text from a computer, PDA, or cell phone, and can customize the text by font size and color. Also, if something is missed, users can scroll back and read the transcript. Broadcasters pay a small fee to have their show transcripted; the service is free for the receiver.
Listen to this as a podcast:
One of the most popular internet technologies today is podcasting, which is the act of creating and sending audio files over the Internet. Podcasts are used for media such as radio shows and audio blogging. Users can listen to podcasts over the Internet, or download them to a MP3 player like an iPod.
Unfortunately, not all podcasts come with a text transcript, which means that the deafies get left out. I’d love to know what’s being said on the now-defunct Penn Jillette Show, as I’ve been told that it’s quite funny. I’m also interested in The Splendid Table and This American Life. Sadly, none of these shows provide text transcripts that I can find.
NPR and American Public Media offer text transcripts for a fee. Apple offers hundreds of thousands of podcasts at their iTunes Store for free, and yet I cannot find any text transcripts.
So, after much Googling, I found a few services that offer text transcribing for audio podcasts:
- Casting Words – transcription services that start at $0.75 per minute
- Automatic Sync Technologies – they make captions for iTunes. You have to contact them for a price quote.
I can’t seem to find a service or software program that transcribes audio podcasts to text without charging fees. Right now, text transcripts fall within the realm of the podcaster deciding whether they want to provide a transcript or not. Obviously, there is a need for no-fee transcripts.
So far, I have only found two podcasts offering no-fee transcripts – thank you! Hopefully more podcasters will follow their example.
Deaf people are interested in reading the content of podcasts. All media – whether its content is emergency information, news, or entertainment – should be accessible to everyone. Everyone has a right to knowledge & information, and access to it. Podcasts communicate information that should be made available to all audiences.
