Many professions rely daily on speedy transcriptions of, for example, legal proceedings, courtroom hearings, medical records, interviews, speeches and, with faster broadband, this list now includes web seminars and other web-based presentations, such as videos.
Traditionally transcribers relied on a mechanical foot pedal to stop and start recordings, leaving their hands free to type.
When the profession went digital, Evan Kelly, former IT Director of the Victorian Government Reporting Service (VGRS) was amongst the first to design a foot pedal with a USB connection.
He explains the vPedal (www.vpedal.com) comes with plug-ins to the latest audio and video playback software, vastly accelerating computer-based transcription and positioning the industry to ride the broadband revolution.
“Broadband makes it possible to send large files, such as audio files, speedily across the internet, especially with File Transfer Protocol (FTP)* software,” Evan said.
“Remote transcription is opening up new business opportunities globally.”
As an example of how broadband is reshaping the profession, Evan points to one of his vPedal clients, an Australian company, TranscriberOnline (www.transcriberonline.com), who is adapting internet, broadband and digital technology to provide a wide range of transcription services worldwide.
“Broadband is also creating career opportunities in transcribing for stay-at-home mums or dads,” he said.
“With fast broadband, professional transcribers can easily service medical, as well as legal, academic, government and other transcription needs, from home,” he said.
The online revolution is also creating new uses for the vPedal, beyond transcription.
“For example, it’s being used by people in the video production area, such as movie subtitle writers and animators who synchronise words to mouth movements online, by musicians who use interactive, computer-based practice software and by visually impaired people who read DAISY* books online.
Evan has also designed a companion product vDictate (www.vdictate.com), which is a recording device that plugs into a USB port, allowing audio files to be saved directly to the computer, ready to send anywhere in the world.
Definitions:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) transfers data from one computer to another across a network, such as the internet. FTP is a network protocol like Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which transfers displayable Web pages and related files, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which transfers e-mail.
A DAISY book is a digital talking book that may contain both sound and text. DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System. DAISY books can be read on a portable digital playback device or on a computer with DAISY software.