The professional industry standard allows one hour to transcribe 15 minutes of good quality, clearly recorded speech. Therefore it can take a minimum of four hours to transcribe a 60 minute recording. Transcribing group recordings can take much longer.
One may think it should only take one hour to transcribe one hour of recording. That would be nice, but in reality we speak much faster than we can write or type. It is accepted that we speak four times faster than we can type and speak seven times faster than we can write. Poor quality recordings will increase the transcription times even further.
Some things to consider when recording are:
· Record in a quiet area · Use only new, good quality tapes · Use a good quality microphone · Keep the microphone close to the speakers and remind them to speak slowly and clearly · Remind speakers in a group not to speak over one another
If you have a transcription project to complete, please email us at ash@kathsoffice.com for a quote – we’ll get back to you within one hour!