Just as the last decade has been about mobile devices, the next decade of the Internet will be about audio. From voice search to dictation and artificial intelligence assistants, the keyboard will eventually be replaced by our voices. This is good news for our wrists.
However, voice recognition for dictation and transcription is still very popular. The industry leader is Dragon, and both Google and Apple have good dictation functionality built into Google Docs and macOS, respectively. But in general with voice recognition, there can be more wrong than right, especially if you have an unusual accent.
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That’s why Otter is making a splash. This is an audio transcription service that really works – and works very well. What’s more, not all of their best deals are hidden behind professional plans.
What is an otter?
If you have an audio file in which one or more people are talking, you may need a written version of those conversations. Maybe you want them to be used for YouTube subtitles, or maybe you want to upload them online for SEO purposes? Or maybe you are a student who has an audio recording of a lecture and need a written version of it?
Whatever your circumstances, there are many reasons why you might want to use an audio transcription service. But until now, the capabilities of artificial intelligence were notoriously bad, and companies that offered to do it for you charged indecent amounts of money.
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But now Otter is here to make transcription accessible and accessible to everyone. This is an online artificial intelligence machine that will take your audio file in no time and produce a written version of it. The exact length will obviously depend on the length of your audio file.
Before you start things to keep in mind about an otter
Otter‘s audio transcription service won’t be 100% perfect because:
- People stutter and change direction in the middle of a sentence. It doesn’t sound so bad when you listen. But when you see it in writing, it looks chaotic.
- The otter sometimes has problems with punctuation if a person speaks quickly and one sentence moves into another. Then the point can be skipped.
- If a person has a specific accent, the Otter may misunderstand. Hence the advantage of a custom vocabulary list in the Pro plan.
- Some words may be misspelled. For example, a Lyft company name might be misspelled as “Elevator.”
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Subscribe to Otter
The free plan gives you 600 minutes of free transcription every month. For ordinary users, this is more than enough. However, if you decide to upgrade to the Pro plan ($ 9.99 per month or $ 99.99 per year), the benefits are amazing.
Those 600 minutes shoot up to 6,000 minutes per month and also export transcriptions to various file formats (like PDF and DOCX), customizable vocabulary lists (to improve the accuracy of transcriptions), Dropbox sync and more.
But for testing an audio transcription service, 600 minutes is more than you’ll ever need. Go to the Otter website and register. You can create an account or register using your Google or Facebook account.
Then in your account settings, you can connect your account to Google or Microsoft to add your calendar and contacts. Zoom integration is a nice touch – as soon as you make a Zoom call, the audio is immediately sent to Otter for decryption.
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How to get your first copies with a Otter
For this article, I will use the MP3 file of the podcast I downloaded. But you can also record someone talking directly on the Otter website and it will be transcribed that way.
- Go to the main page of the toolbar and click Import Audio / Video on the right.
- A download window will appear where you can navigate to the location of the file on your computer or drag and drop it with your mouse or trackpad. As soon as the file appears, it will start downloading.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- When you see the status “Successful”, click “Finish” and you will see that it is “processing”.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- Now we have to wait. For this one hour file, the audio transcription took 30 minutes. You always receive an email notification when the transcription is ready. This way you can download the audio file, start the process, then turn everything off and leave. Otter will let you know when this is done.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- When you are informed that the transcription is ready, return to the site and click on it on the dashboard page. You will now see it along with handy keywords and tags. You can also create a share link for others to view.
Final text
- When you are told that the transcription is ready, return to the site and click on it on the Dashboard page. You’ll now see it, along with helpful keywords and tags. You can also create a share link for others to view.
- But as I said, it won’t be perfect, so you’ll see errors right away. But it’s easy to fix by clicking the blue CHANGE button.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- Now fix the typos on the Otter website and don’t forget to save everything.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- Now it’s time to export the file. Click the three vertical dots and choose Export Text.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
- The free version only gives you text file versions or copy to clipboard, and various other options that should not be changed unless you really need to.
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
Otter – An AI-Powered Audio Transcription Service That Actually Works”/>
What’s great about Otter is their speed, as well as the fact that its artificial intelligence is smart enough to separate the different dynamics in sound. Little things are important.
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