How can I improve accuracy of automatic transcription?

While we're constantly working to improve transcription accuracy on our side, there are a couple of ways to increase the accuracy of automatic (machine) transcription with current technology, especially if you have control over the source recording.

Recording
  • Ensure that the quality of recording is improved. This can be achieved by:
    • using a better microphone
    • having the microphone closer to all speakers
    • reducing ambient background noise
  • Ensure that the recording doesn't have background music or other conversations.
  • Ensure that speakers are not speaking over each other.
  • Record in WAV, AIFF or FLAC formats since compressed formats like MP3 tend to compromise the quality of the audio slightly to achieve smaller file sizes.
Custom Dictionary

If your audio/video has words that are frequently used or has proper names that are uncommon, you can add these words/phrases to the custom dictionary when creating a new Automatic Transcription. You'll find this option on the New Transcription page under the Options section. This will help improve the accuracy of these specific words (but not as much as having a high quality recording).

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