WisconsinEye Adds Online Transcription Tool – Cool but Not “Official Transcripts” Level Cool
I noticed today in WisconsinEye’s Morning Minute email that they have introduced a transcription tool for their archived programming.
According to WisconsinEye, “the online transcription tool allows users to read and follow a transcript while watching any on-demand video. Users can search the transcript and jump to searched words, click on links to time codes within the transcription page, as well as download the entire transcript.”
I got kind of excited when I read this. Does this mean now I can download full transcripts of floor sessions, hearings, committee meetings, etc. for research purposes?
Hmm – not quite. There’s a big banner on the site that reads: “Transcriptions are machine-generated and may not have been proofread or corrected. Transcriptions are reference, search and assistive in nature only and are NOT an official transcript of this video.” Darn.
I did a little spot-checking to see how accurate they actually are. Yeah, it’s about what you’d expect from a machine-generated transcript. Here’s a sample of the transcript from the November 6th Assembly Committee on Government Accountability and Oversight meeting.
For comparison, here’s a video clip of that exact spot in the meeting which I generated using the WisconsinEye clipping tool.
So although the transcript tool isn’t quite as cool as I was hoping, it still is a nice addition to the site. It’s a big step in making the content accessible to hearing-impaired users and it allows all users to keyword search and jump to the exact spot in the video. Nice job, WisconsinEye. Keep it coming.
According to WisconsinEye, “the online transcription tool allows users to read and follow a transcript while watching any on-demand video. Users can search the transcript and jump to searched words, click on links to time codes within the transcription page, as well as download the entire transcript.”
I got kind of excited when I read this. Does this mean now I can download full transcripts of floor sessions, hearings, committee meetings, etc. for research purposes?
Hmm – not quite. There’s a big banner on the site that reads: “Transcriptions are machine-generated and may not have been proofread or corrected. Transcriptions are reference, search and assistive in nature only and are NOT an official transcript of this video.” Darn.
I did a little spot-checking to see how accurate they actually are. Yeah, it’s about what you’d expect from a machine-generated transcript. Here’s a sample of the transcript from the November 6th Assembly Committee on Government Accountability and Oversight meeting.
For comparison, here’s a video clip of that exact spot in the meeting which I generated using the WisconsinEye clipping tool.
So although the transcript tool isn’t quite as cool as I was hoping, it still is a nice addition to the site. It’s a big step in making the content accessible to hearing-impaired users and it allows all users to keyword search and jump to the exact spot in the video. Nice job, WisconsinEye. Keep it coming.