Video Transcription at Fingertips
At Fingertips we offer a professional video transcription service and one of the questions we’ve been asked is “why should I have my videos transcribed, what are the benefits?”. There are, in fact, many reasons, but here are just a few.
There are many good reasons for having the content of your videos transcribed; here are just a few.
Maximise your audience:
Not everyone has high-speed internet access and, even those people who do, might not always be able to access it if they are, say, working remotely.
Aside from the technological issues, there are times when watching a video might not be appropriate, for example, in the middle of an open-plan office where it will disturb others.
And then, believe it or not, there are still plenty of people who simply prefer reading articles to watching videos!
Maximise accessibility:
People with hearing or visual impairments might well not find it easy to watch a video; and those whose first language is not English might find understanding the spoken word difficult.
A full transcript of your video means the content can be accessed by as wide a range of people as possible, and it can be translated into other languages, converted to Braille, or accessed by a screen reader.
Maximise the usability of your content:
On a practical level, it is very much easier to navigate a written transcript than an audio file. Finding a specific reference within a video is not straightforward and might mean watching the whole thing to find what you’re looking for, whereas it’s quick and simple to search text for the same information.
Once you have transcribed your video, you can also use some or all of the content again in other formats, such as presentations, blogs or tweets.
Search engines are not currently able to index audio/video content so you will have to rely on only a few keywords and the tags you’ve provided. By posting your video transcript online, you will increase your search engine optimisation and the chances of potential clients finding and using your web site.
Our video transcription service
At Fingertips we can transcribe your videos from digital files or from the old VHS format, providing you with a text version of the content. Whether your video is on a web site or YouTube, whether it’s pre-recorded or live streaming, we can type up a written transcript – we can even give you a copy of the audio file should you want it!
Once we’ve typed up your transcript we can add other features to broaden the appeal and enhance the accessibility and usability of your video content.
Time codes: We can add time codes to your transcript to enable search engines to know precisely when each word or phrase appears in your original video.
This means that if someone types a phrase included in your video into a search engine, not only will your video appear in their results, but they will also be taken to the place in the video where that phrase is spoken. It’s even possible to start the video running at that point!
Captions: Synchronised captioning is intended to make your video accessible to those with hearing difficulties (or no access to audio) – it assumes that the viewer is unable to hear any sound. For this reason captions include all significant audio features, such as tone of voice, doors slamming, telephone ringing, etc. They move to indicate who is speaking and can also include the speaker’s name.
Captions can be open (ie always visible) but are usually closed, meaning they can be turned on or off as necessary.
Subtitles: Are aimed at those who can hear/do have access to audio, but who might not necessarily understand the language; they are intended to be translated to other languages so include only the actual words spoken, not any sound effects. They are nearly always static and in the bottom centre of the screen, so don’t move to show who’s speaking.
Subtitles are usually open, so there’s no option to turn them off.
At Fingertips we have special software to produce subtitles, which we then synchronise to your video to ensure that each subtitle appears just when it should – right down to the millisecond!
So whatever video have, whether it’s online or on VHS tape, if you’d like to make it available to a wider audience, please do contact Fingertips to discuss your requirements.