Transcription or speech to text, has been around since long before even the word itself came into use. It dates back to 3400 BCE, when it was common practice for scribes to write down what kings spoke. Well, the methods have evolved and we have AI instead of scribes. However, transcription services are usually offered on the cloud and there are fewer options for on-premise transcription.
The demand for video transcription has risen almost as much as the demand for video itself. Not much of a surprise; there are many benefits of speech-to-text transcription and it's a staple function for video content management and video streaming platforms.
Video cloud storage is another new innovation that has gotten really popular, and as demand grew, providers quickly began to provide automatic transcription as a common cloud technology service.
Not everyone is smitten with the Cloud and would be looking for on-premise transcription capabilities through AI.
Many organizations continue to use on-premise storage due to concerns regarding privacy, laws and control. They don't want to deal with the risks and issues associated with the cloud but that doesn't mean they don't need video transcription. Luckily, automatic on-premise transcription is also available for those who aren't keen on adopting the cloud, through VIDIZMO speech-to-text services.
Learn More About VIDIZMO Speech to Text Services for On-Premises
Why Some Organizations Prefer On-premise Over The Cloud?
While speech-to-text transcription is commonly and primarily available as a cloud service, this means that organizations operating with an on-premise infrastructure are limited in their options. When it comes to video content management, for many organizations, transcribing can be important and even necessary.
The major reason many organizations are wary about handing over data to a public cloud provider is due to concerns about security. Most organizations are generally hesitant to share files outside of the company with common points of concern, including control over permissions and storage and information leaks.
Certain laws and regulations can also deter organizations from adopting cloud services. For example, the US Patriot Act gave the government access to all the data held by organizations, making businesses worry about their data privacy. These concerns grew further after the Cloud Act passed in 2018, explicitly authorizing US law enforcement to access data held by US cloud service providers regardless of where they're physically stored. Hamburg's commissioner for freedom of information and protection of data, Johannes Caspar, criticized the Act and claimed it to be a breach of European rules, stating "[The Cloud Act] is a law at the expense of privacy and the fundamental right to data protection, with potentially global proportions."
The risks and issues associated with security, confidentiality, and legal compliance are the main reason why many organizations are hesitant to adopt the cloud.
The Importance of Video Transcription
For many organizations, video transcription is almost as important as the video itself. But why is that? Because there are many benefits to transcribing a video which is why it's such a staple for video streaming platforms. In some cases, it can even be necessary, such as for compliance with laws and regulations. We've listed five main benefits of video transcription and why it's important for your organization.
Accommodate People with Disabilities
Transcribing a video helps relay its content to people who are unable to hear the audio. According to WHO, approximately 466 million people around the world suffer from disabling hearing loss. This means a significant number of people won't be able to properly access or understand your content. Speech-to-text transcription enables you to expand your reach and increase your audience.
Read More > Accessibility Standards for Video
Meet Compliance Requirements
In 2016, the US Department of Justice revised the Americans with Disabilities Act, effectively mandating the accessibility of videos to people with disabilities. The Act aims to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, public accommodations and entities, other aspects of life. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provides a prominent guideline to help businesses and websites stay compliant with the law.
There have been several lawsuits against businesses for failing to comply. Video transcription helps prevent breaching of laws and regulations by proactively providing a measure to prevent discrimination against people with auditory disabilities.
Make Content Accessible in Sound-Sensitive Environments
There are other reasons people might not be able to listen to a video. According to Wyzowl, people spend an average of 2.5 hours watching videos online in a day. In this digital age of smartphones, laptops, and tablets, everyone is always connected to the internet, and a lot of those times, the environment can be unsuitable or prohibitive for playing audio, such as commuting on a crowded train or sitting in a noisy café. In such situations, a transcript provides another way for your audience to consume your content and keep them engaged.
Improve Content Discoverability Through SEO
SEO is a key technique for increasing site traffic through search engines. The more content search engines can crawl, the more your SEO improves, and the more likely your pages are to show up on web results and searches. Search engines can't crawl video content. With video transcription, you can create text for search engines like Google or Yahoo to crawl, improve your ranking and make your content more searchable on the web.
Improve User Experience and Reduce Time Investment
A transcript makes it easier to search for content on your website or platform. Transcripts provide text for indexable words that can be used to better improve search when looking for a video on the platform. Similarly, with interactive transcripts, you can search for a specific word or speech occurring in the video, find exactly when it occurs, and automatically be taken to the point in the video instead of having to watch the whole video to try and catch the moment the dialogue occurs.
This can save valuable time and resources that would have otherwise been spent looking for content. For example, financial institutions are obligated to record nearly all voice activity for equity markets. Large companies can end up generating hundreds of hours' worth of recordings and it can take weeks to manually scan their content. Transcribing those recordings can make it easier to search and monitor relevant content and significantly reduce the time and effort required.
Repurpose Transcripts for Other Content
It takes a lot of time and resources for creating brand new content. For many companies, they'd rather focus that time and resources into accomplishing other tasks and objectives. You can repurpose video transcripts for creating new content such as blogs, articles, social media posts, and more. You can even repurpose the transcript to create additional video content. Repurposing content saves you a lot of time and resources on creating and brainstorming for new or related content, such as follow-up videos or instructional articles.
VIDIZMO Speech to Text On-Premises
About VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube
VIDIZMO provides not just transcription of videos, but much more. It offers an enterprise video streaming platform that allows organizations to manage and stream for end-to-end video use cases. You can stream videos internally for on-boarding and training, managing recorded meetings, or stream externally for marketing or corporate communications.
It's a YouTube-like video portal, where you can upload videos, manage and share them while having them transcribed using AI in your language of choice. Each transcript is interactive, allowing you to search for specific words and hop to any moment where the word occurs in the content. You can also view the timestamp for where the dialogue occurs in the video. VIDIZMO video content management system generates accurate, synchronous transcripts downloadable for offline use and viewing. It also generates closed captions that are synced with the transcripts.
Read More on VIDIZMO Video On-demand Platform.
VIDIZMO solutions are available as SaaS, on cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid model.
There are two ways VIDIZMO can help you automatically generate transcriptions for your videos that are store on-premises.
Azure Containers On-premise
This option utilizes docker containers offered by Azure. To convert speech in videos to text, VIDIZMO integrates with Azure Cognitive Services Container. This way all videos uploaded on to the VIDIZMO system are transcribed at the backend using Azure Cognitive Services.
There are certain benefits of using this Azure service. Firstly, the transcription is highly accurate. Moreover, transcription is supported in languages other than English. However, translation of transcriptions in an on-premise environment is not available right now. Azure may provide these on a case-by-case basis if you apply for it.
VIDIZMO's DeepSpeech On-Premise Transcription
VIDIZMO offers organizations the option of on-premise transcription engine that allows them to generate automatic video and audio transcripts for their content. This is less costly option than using Azure containers but has lower accuracy.
To learn more about our transcription services and on-premise features, check out our website, sign up for a free trial or contact us.
