Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required

Subject: Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 10:02 AM

Please can someone help - preferably someone who can speed-type to transcribe into text three important audio recordings?

These are:

1. Sam Sherry lecture at Reading Cloggies Festival - 1984
http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/clogging/sherry/sam_sherry.htm

2. Joan Flett's Lecture on Collecting Traditional Scottish Dance - on Google Video but soon to be deleted by Google as they close GV down - Reading Cloggies Festival - 1993.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8030846037670519879

3. Ian Dumur's Lecture - "Half a Lifetime's Step and Clog Dancing' - currently in the process of being digitised from analogue. This will be given to Ian's widow Ailsa Dunmur.

Many thanks.

Subject: RE: Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 10:15 PM

Not an answer to your transcription query, but something that might allow the preservation of things like your Item 2 (file about to disappear with the withdrawal of Google Videos) until such time as transcription can be arranged.

In a recent thread about YouTube archiving policy I noted the warning about Google Videos imminent disappearance. Fearing the loss of one of my favourite films (which used to be on YouTube in its full 37-minute form, now split over four clips), I looked around to see if there was any way of capturing streaming video, equivalent to Audio Hijack and others for streaming audio.

I found a free Firefox add-on (also available for Internet Explorer) called Ant Video Downloader which can save streaming video to your hard drive.

http://www.ant.com/video-downloader

It seems to do what I wanted, so I now have an archived copy of my film.
The downloader facility might be used to preserve the item you mentioned is about to become unavailable. I guess the alternative would be to contact the original poster on Google Videos (I don't even know if that is possible) to see if they could provide you a back-up copy.

Ross

Subject: RE: Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 03:07 AM

Thank you - interesting app. - could be useful. The cessation of Google Video is another problem. They do at least have a download option for owners. And luckily I still have - barring a hard-disk crash - the originals to my own films.

What I need right now is a fast typist to transcribe the audio tracks - which are lectures - into text for uploading to a web page. Its what the people are saying that is more important at this stage.

Subject: RE: Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required
From: Tootler
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 07:30 AM

CJB, If you can get access to an audio typist great but, if not...

You can do your own transcriptions. It's tedious, but I did it for a Masters degree disssertation. I had about 3hrs of recording I had made and it had to be transcribed, literally. I do not have special typing skills and my first transcription was in pencil (easy to erase mistakes). It's a matter of listening to the recording in short sections, stopping and writing down what you have heard, checking it as often as is necessary to ensure you have captured everything accurately then moving on a bit. There are slow downers available now to make things easier, but it's possible do it at normal speed. I was working from a cassette tape and simply did it at normal speed, going forwards and back as necessary.

As a rough guide it will take you about 3hrs to transcribe 1 hr of recording but it is doable. You then need to add the time needed to type up your pencil transcript. I still use the same basic method if I want to capture song words off a recording.

Subject: RE: Transcripts of Audio Recordings Required
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 08:11 AM

Are there not any software applications around which can translate audio to script?