List of all types of Media transcription

Media transcription services can be broadly classified into two categories. These are Analog Media Transcription and Digital Media Transcription.

Analog Media

There are two major forms of audio analog media: magnetic tape and the gramophone record. Although CD and MP3 technology has largely superseded these analog technologies, neither has become entirely obsolete and disappeared from regular use. Magnetic tape was also used as a medium for data storage in early computers, and some computers like the Polish AKAT-1 were non-digital, all-analog devices. Magnetic tapes can further be classified into VHS, Cassettes and Mini Cassettes.

Types of Analog Media Transcription

3. VHS Transcription – The Video Home System (better known by its abbreviation VHS) is a consumer-level video standard developed by Japanese company, JVC, and launched in 1976. The main benefit of the magnetic tape recording was that it could be used over and over again. With the rise of digital media, magnetic tape is nearing obsolescence, but it is slow to leave general use because the technology is well-understood and easy to operate.

VHS transcription is done with the help of a VHS player. The VHS cassette is inserted onto the player and then loaded. After the loading is complete, the transcriber then listens to the cassette and transcribes the audio side by side. It is important that transcriber must possess excellent typing skills so that the transcription can be done as quickly as possible and with minimal errors.

Why do people need VHS Transcription? – The magnetic tapes on a VHS are sensitive to magnetic radiations especially from modern electrical appliances. Besides this, VHS tapes may gather dust particles over a period of time and may become useless. So to preserve the original content on the VHS, people get their tapes transcribed and converted into Word or Audio files.

So who all need VHS Transcription? People, up until a few years back, before 1990 to be exact, when the digital revolution was beginning to take shape, they used to record their interviews, television shows, movies, audio songs, group discussions, conferences etc on VHS media. Some of the recorded content still holds business value to the people who recorded them. Hence, journalists, interviewers, businesses, lawyers, attorneys, researchers, medical practitioners and lecturers hire transcriptionists who can transcribe and convert the content on the VHS into text format. Once converted into text, these can be easily backed up for life in a DVD or CD.

4. Cassettes and Mini Cassettes – These types of media are very similar to a VHS cassette. The only difference is that, cassettes were used primarily for recording audio and they were much smaller in size. Although still used today, their usage is declining day by day as modern day voice recorder and mp3 players have taken over.

Digital Media

The compact disc is an optical medium for storing digital data. As a practical matter, the only difference between the music a CD was originally invented to record, and the common data storage use of today, is the contents of the disc and the device that is reading it. Data is encoded onto a CD through a series of minuscule indentations called "pits." The spaces between pits are called "lands." The changes between pits and lands are read as binary code by a scanning laser.

Digital computing also works through the manipulation of vast amounts of data, being represented by a long string of binary code. This is possible because a typical desktop computer is capable of making billions of binary instructions per second

Types of Digital Media Transcription

5. CD/DVD Transcription - DVD transcription refers to the conversion into text of audio-visual content stored on DVD.

6. Mp3 Transcription

7. Wav Transcription

8. DSS Transcription

Summary - Media transcription services can be bifurcated into digital and analog type. Although very popular at one point of time, analog medium such as VHS and Cassettes are becoming obsolete now. They have now been overtaken by digital media such as Compact Discs, Digitally Versatile Discs and other digital formats. Analog transcription is on the decline today but people still require analog transcription services to preserve some of their important and priceless content.