Rates and Info
Transcription fee is $2 per minute of tape footage. For billing purposes, length of footage is rounded up to the nearest 30 seconds. You will be invoiced when a project is completed.
Tapes may be on DVD, or in electronic media format, such as Quicktime. VHS tapes take longer to transcribe, and cost an additional 50 cents per minute.
You may specify your desired transcript format. If you do not have a preference, the format will be chosen at the transcriber's discretion. Go to Format Examples to see examples of how certain types of footage are typically transcribed.
Time code is inserted every 20-30 seconds in a transcript. For more information on what time code is, and how it is used, please go to About Time Code.
Generally, it takes 6 to 8 times the length of a tape to transcribe it, although times vary depending on tape content and other factors. (A 30-minute tape would take 3 to 4 hours to transcribe.) Please specify if you need a project to be completed by a certain date or time.
If you are new to the idea of transcribing, below is a quick example of how it can be very helpful.
Jane films a businessman talking about his business for two hours. When she is done, Jane has in her hands two hours of footage that she wants to cut up and make into a five-minute film. Instead of having to continuously take notes while fast-forwarding and rewinding through two hours of footage to find the best parts, it is easier for Jane to have a document that she can thumb through, highlight, rearrange, and cut and paste. Once Jane has looked through a transcript of all the footage, she can make a "map" of all the sections that she is interested in using in her final film. Because of the time code, she knows where those various sections are located throughout the tapes.
Please contact Emily to request transcribing, or for more information.
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