NDA

First, and the most simple, is using a Non-Disclosure Agreement, usually referred to as an NDA when working with a third party. The person you send your work to signs this agreement, promising not to reveal anything in your file to anyone else. This means both private information and business ideas or breakthroughs. We at EQ Transcription Services Ltd offer NDAs to all our clients as part of our service.

GDPR

In 2018 new data laws went into effect in Europe called General Data Protection Regulation, (GDPR). This means whoever has your personal information must treat it in a respectful way and inform you of any use they make of it. While this law came into effect in Europe, it is not really limited to that continent. Any visitor to a site registered in the EU must have the same respectful treatment, as any European site respect this new law.

EQ Transcription Services Ltd respects everyone’s privacy and had no trouble being fully compliant with GDPR.

On a more personal level, your data can be secured using a variety of technology; antivirus, firewall, encryption, two-factor authentication and much more.

Do not be misled into thinking only large corporations are targeted, anyone and everyone can be, so at least a good antivirus and firewall on your computer is essential to protect you from a cyber-attack. These can include phishing, malware, identity theft, ransom, man-in-the-middle and much more.

Hackers need very little information to steal your identity, so protect yourself by making sure they get none at all.

The post Why Data Security is Essential? appeared first on EQ Transcription Services.

Nowadays there are a lot of options available for everything we do. Similarly, for recording an audio also there are many devices available out there. Most common options are Dedicated/Digital voice recorder (Dictaphone) and Smartphone. We’ll discuss these devices in terms of recording an audio for transcription. Let’s check step-by-step which device is better.

•  Purpose & Format:

Dictaphone is digital voice recorder & as the name suggests it is made for recording only. Smartphone, again as the name suggests it is a phone which is for different purposes like calls, texts, internet surfing, photography and recording as well. Smartphone mostly support 2 formats which are 3GP & MP4 whereas various digital recorders are available which support different formats like MP3, MP4, WAV, MPEG, etc

• Simplicity & Quality:

For transcription, we need a device which is easy to use. Dictaphone is as simple as record, stop & play whereas Smartphone usually don’t allow you to get to a recording app quickly. Also, most of these phones are not made for multi-tasking so while recording an audio if you get a call and you want to receive it, you are at a risk of losing your audio. When it comes to high quality audio, digital recorders come along built in microphones which are dedicated to professional recording only and thus provide high quality audio as compared to the Smartphone.

• Duration & Affordability:

Audio that we need for transcription is sometimes very lengthy and Smartphone is designed to record between 30-60 minutes at once whereas digital recorders allow you hours of recording in one go. For recording such lengthy audios, recording device should have a decent battery life and again Battery life of a digital recorder is higher than that of a Smartphone. When it comes to pricing, digital recorders are more affordable whereas a Smartphone with a high-end built-in recorder comes with a big price tag.

Which device serves as better voice recorder, completely depends on the purpose that you are recording the audio for. For business purpose you may want to invest in a digital voice recorder whereas if you want the audio just for personal use then Smartphone could be your best option.

The post The Better Device for Recording Interview appeared first on EQ Transcription Services.

Which brings us to the next question- which format should a digital audio file be recorded in? Although all file types have their own plus and minuses, what every client should be more concerned about is the quality of the audio file and the size of the file itself. Unless an audio file has been compressed properly, it could impact the sound quality of the file or erase some data and secondly, it could also take ages to upload on to the website server as well. Sound quality usually doesn’t matter if the digital audio file contains material that has been dictated by a single speaker as most speakers tend to hold the microphone closely while dictating. However, if the recording is of a focus group where the speakers are seated in different places and speak in varying tempos and pitches, higher sound quality is required or else the transcriptionist will find it difficult to decipher what has been said.

If you are confused about whether your transcriptionist will be able to open the files that you send, it is best to discuss this before making the actual recording. In case your recorder does not allow you to record audio data in your transcriptionist’s preferred file format, don’t worry as there is plenty of good software available online which can convert digital audio files from one form to the other. Let’s take a look at two commonly used digital audio file types :

• Waveform Audio: These kind of audio files are distinguished by the .wav extension and are quite popular with many PC users. These files are usually very large and could take a long time to upload as well. However, the sound quality of .wav files is quite good.
• MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3: These files carry the .mp3 extension and are used quite frequently. It is not unusual to find music tracks usually recorded in the .mp3 format. These files are ideally the best for transcription purposes as they upload quite fast as well. In case your dictation recorder only allows you to record data in a wav file format, simply download an audio file converter and compress it to an mp3 format which can then be sent for transcribing.

In the next article, we take a look at other digital audio file formats which can also be used for transcription purposes.

The post Different Types of Audio Files – Part 1 appeared first on EQ Transcription Services.