Video Transcription Services

Video transcription

Video transcription, captions and subtitle-ready text

Automatic captions have improved, but they still trip over accents, people talking at once, names and technical terms, and nobody checks them before they go out. Many of our customers come to us after trying automated transcription software, or after handing the job to an intern. In our experience a skilled human transcriber still does better, especially with accents, background noise and specialist terms, and we get the words right first time.

Our video transcription service gives you a precise text of everything said, so you can review the content quickly and make changes wherever they are needed. For convenience, we accept video files in any format, in any language, with translation and subtitle-ready text if you need them.

What you can get from a video

• A full transcript with timestamps and speaker names
• Captions for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing
• Subtitle-ready translations in other languages
• SRT or WebVTT files for your video player
• Time-coded transcripts for editors
• Text for show notes, articles and search

Captions and subtitles are not the same thing

Captions are in the same language as the speech. As well as the words, they show who is speaking and the sounds that matter, such as [door slams] or [laughter], for people who cannot hear them.

Subtitles translate the speech for viewers who do not know the language. A subtitle has to be short enough to read while it is on screen, and the viewer is watching the picture too, so good subtitles condense the speech without losing the point. The BBC's subtitle guidelines, a common reference in the UK, normally keep subtitles to two lines on screen at a time.

Captions and accessibility rules

Public sector bodies have to caption the pre-recorded video they publish on their websites under the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, which apply the WCAG standard to video published from 23 September 2020. Outside the public sector, captions are part of making a service accessible to disabled people under the Equality Act 2010, and plenty of hearing viewers watch on a phone with the sound off. A human-checked caption file is the difference between meeting the standard and hoping the automatic ones are close enough.

Why human transcription is still worth it

Software is at its weakest exactly where a transcript matters most: names of people, places and products, strong regional accents, several people talking at once, and specialist vocabulary. A skilled transcriber hears the difference between "fifteen" and "fifty" in context, knows that the speaker said "Kraków" and not "crack of", and marks what is genuinely inaudible instead of inventing a plausible sentence.

Videos in other languages

For a video in another language, we can transcribe it in the original language and translate it into English, or the other way round, and produce subtitle-ready text timed to the picture. For interviews used in news or documentaries, send the whole interview rather than the clip, because the translator will get the extract right more often when they have heard the full answer. Our media sector page covers voice-overs and broadcast work.

Our guarantee

All our services come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and our goal is maximum satisfaction for our clients. Our clients have benefited from a fast, reliable and efficient video transcription service, and if something in a transcript is not right, tell us and we will put it right.

Questions about video transcription

Which video formats do you accept?

Any format, sent as a file or as a private download link.

What will I receive?

Usually a Word or PDF transcript, and SRT or WebVTT files for captions and subtitles. Tell us where the video will be published and we will supply the right format.

Do you transcribe audio-only recordings?

Yes. See our audio transcription service for interviews, meetings and other recordings.